Angola’s National Agency of Petroleum, Gas and Biofuels (ANPG), the country’s regulatory agency, has announced a scheduled maintenance of the TOTALEnergies’ Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel Dalia, located in Block 17.
“The scheduled shutdown that will take place from February 20 to March 26 2023”, the regulator says in a release, noting that it was providing “the necessary clarification, in view of the inaccuracies circulating in some media”.
ANPG says that the operation will involve more than 500 specialized technicians, including TOTALEnergies’ employees and service providers, observing the high standards of safety, hygiene and environment in force in the oil and gas industry”.
It is unusual for a regulator to go to press to announce an operational plan on behalf of an operator, so should a lot more interpretation be read into ANPG’s statement?
The agency does not respond to press inquiries, but it says this much in the announcement:
“Contrary to what is speculated using sources external to the oil sector, this is actually a preventive maintenance (for that very reason programmed) of the equipment, aimed precisely at guaranteeing its operational efficiency and the reduction of production losses, within the scope of a annual work program, approved by ANPG and the Ministry of Mineral Resources, Oil and Gas (MIREMPET).
“As it is a scheduled stoppage, its impact is already safeguarded in the production projections established by the Angolan authorities with investors that are part of the Contractor Group of Block 17, not affecting the commitments of the supply of Angolan oil in the international market”.
ANPG lectures that “the operating philosophy of oil installations includes carrying out work for the preventive maintenance of essential or critical equipment, with complete or partial shutdown of the installations every four, five or six years, for a period of time that varies from 20 to 45 days. Maintenance includes a whole series of interventions such as replacing parts, equipment for engines, turbines, electrical equipment, control instruments, cleaning, painting, among others”.
