Azule Energy to invest $5 billion over next five years in Angola

LUANDA (Reuters) -Azule Energy, the joint venture between Italian oil and gas explorer Eni and BP, expects to invest another $5 billion in Angola over the next four to five years, Eni's Chief Operating Officer Guido Brusco told Reuters on Wednesday.

The latest investment in both new and existing projects will match investments in oil and gas projects since the joint venture launched three years ago in Sub-Saharan Africa's No.2 oil producer.

Angola has overhauled its regulatory regime, wooing new investments as the former OPEC member looks to maintain oil production above 1 million barrels a day.

"We have in the next four to five years 18 wells to be drilled on which two-thirds are operated by Azule and one-third operated by others," Brusco said on the sidelines of an oil and gas conference.

He said Eni, which became the first liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter from Mozambique in 2022 with its Coral South floating platform, was also progressing with its second platform there.

Mozambique's government in April approved the development plan for Eni's Coral Norte (North) floating LNG platform, paving the way for a final investment decision. 

Once operational, the country's second floating platform will produce 3.5 million metric tons of LNG each year for 30 years, doubling existing LNG production from the offshore Rovuma Basin.

"We are still waiting for one partner approval, but we have government approval, we have the financial institutions, the loan is there, ready, the project is technically and financially strong," Brusco said about Coral North FLNG.

"We do not foresee problems, and before the year-end you will hear something."

Most of the current output is destined for the European market, as the Southern African nation also looks to start TotalEnergies' long-delayed LNG project on land soon.

(Reporting by Miguel Gomes; Writing by Wendell Roelf;Editing by Sfundo Parakozov, Jan Harvey and Tomasz Janowski)