Big Oil!

On November 1, the Angolan Minister of Industry, Botelho de Vasconcelos, officially inaugurated the world's largest, floating oil platform in the world, named Pazflor.  Having a potential production capacity of 220,000 barrels of oil per day at a construction cost of some $9 billion, the unit is operated by the oil company Total.

Total began production on its new Pazflor project offshore Angola in August. Oil fields on the venture, which have estimated total reserves of 590m barrels, lie in water depths of between 600 and 1,200 metres and so add to Angola's growing list of deepwater and ultra-deepwater projects.

Standard oil rigs cannot be used in such deep water because they cannot be fixed to the sea bed and so oil companies use ships known as floating, production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels to tap deepwater fields.

Oil is pumped up into FPSOs and then stored until it can be transferred to waiting oil tankers for distribution. Although expensive, such operations remove the need to pipe oil onshore for shipping and allow oil to be tapped in water depths that would otherwise be beyond conventional oil production methods.

According to Total, the FPSO on Pazflor is the biggest in the world, measuring 325 metres by 62 metres with a weight of more than 120,000 tonnes. With storage capacity of 1.9m barrels per day, it could hold Angola's entire production for a single day. 

Production will be gradually increased to 220,000 b/d on 49 wells. Total E&P Angola operates the project with a 40% stake, with the remaining equity held by Statoil (23.33%), Esso Exploration Angola (20%) and BP Exploration Angola (16.67%). Most of the world's biggest oil companies are involved in one jumbo Angolan oil project or another. (ANGOP, APA News southern Africa)

Angolan Goals to Eradicate Malaria

The Angolan Government recently set goals to eliminate malaria in Angola by the year 2020, through the use of a vaccine against the disease, as outlined in the capital Luanda by the deputy director of the National Program to Fight Malaria, Nilton Saraiva. 
The official was speaking during a November 17 meeting organized by Pathfinder International in partnership with Esso Angola, called "A healthy life without malaria", which was attended by senior officials of the Angolan Ministry of Health

Saraiva commented, "The malaria vaccine has is being tested in Africa. In Angola, can be developed over the next five or seven years and it will be an important method for our ultimate goal of eliminating the disease in the country over the next ten years.  While the whole country is endemic, a special concentration will be placed on malaria prevention amongst pregnant women.’

The maternal mortality ratio in Angola—1,400 women die per 100,000 live births—is the highest in Africa and the third highest in the world. Despite the toll that malaria exacts on pregnant women and their infants, it was, until recently, a relatively neglected problem. The Ministry of Health recently reported that malaria accounts for approximately 25% of maternal mortality and is the cause of nearly 10% of pregnant women’s hospital admissions.

Working with Pathfinder International, oil company Esso Angola is contributing greatly to this malaria eradication plan and has supported the fight against malaria in the country since 2002 by investing more than $ 24 million. Their contributions have improved patient care, reconstructed hospitals and implemented advance health care to combat malaria. (ANGOP, Pathfinder International)

Google In Angola

Google, the largest research company in the internet world, plans to soon open an office in Angola as confirmed by Google's vice president for Research and Development for Europe and Africa, Nelson Mattos.

Mattos emphasized that the purpose of Google in Angola is to develop policy which facilitates internet access to everyone without exception.  "We intend to increase the number of internet users in Angola to facilitate access to research," he said.  The company intends to make an investment in terms of infrastructure in partnership with the Angolan Government to bring new products which help the technological development of the country.

In Africa, only 9% of the population has internet access, while access in Europe and America reaches more than 80%.  The only African countries where Google has offices are South Africa, Ghana, Senegal, Kenya, Uganda, Egypt and Nigeria.

The Deputy Minister of Telecommunications and Information Technologies in Angola, Pedro Teta responds, "We are hopeful that the new Google products that are launched in the Angolan market will generate results and spur the growth of IT companies operating in our country. (Angonoticias)