West African nations could soon out-produce Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil supplier, in terms of barrels of oil per day (bopd), president and chief executive officer of VANCO Energy Corporation Gene Van Dyke recently forecasted. “Both Morocco and Côte d'Ivoire have great potential as offshore producers,” he added.
Saudi Arabia currently produces eight million bopd while West Africa produces about 3.7 million bopd, primarily from Nigeria and Angola. But West African production is expected to increase to 10 million bopd by 2008. World oil consumption currently stands at 50 million bopd, 40 percent of which is consumed by the United States, according to Van Dyke. West Africa’s share in supplying the US oil requirements now stands at 15 percent, but this figure is expected by VANCO’s CEO to reach 25 percent.
"What is happening is that the onshore areas of the world -- the continental shelves of the world -- are all pretty matured and have been explored. But deep-water is just starting. It has been explored pretty well in the Gulf of Mexico and Eastern Brazil, but in West Africa it is just at the beginning stages," Van Dyke was quoted as saying by the Washington File.
The Houston-based Vanco Energy Company is a privately held independent oil and gas company exploring and developing oil and gas in deepwater worldwide. Since 1997, the company has acquired licenses offshore eight African countries, becoming the largest deep-water license holder operating off the coast of West Africa. Vanco is now in various stages of start-up across 20 million net acres of deep-water coastal property adjoining Morocco, Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Namibia and Madagascar. — (menareport.com)
© 2002 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
