South Africas Oil production meets 10 percent of its domestic needs. The South African national oil company, PetroSA has concentrated its exploration efforts on the countrys western and southern coasts. Several discoveries have been made in the Bredasdorp Basin on Block 9, including the Oribi, Oryx and Sable fields. Combined, the Oribi and Oryx fields produce 16,000 bbl/d of oil; however, PetroSA has indicated that both fields are in decline. Production at the Sable Field, located approximately 60 miles off the southern coast, commenced in August 2003. The project is a partnership between PetroSA and Pioneer and includes six subsea wells connected to a floating, production, storage and offloading vessel (FPSO) with the capacity to process 60,000 bbl/d of oil. Current production at Sable is around 23,000 bbl/d of oil.
In DRC, Perenco operates six onshore fields, with an output of approximately 20,000 barrels per day. Perenco is also the Operator of DRCs offshore concession and terminal - assets it acquired from Chevron in 2004. In 2004, DRCs national oil company, SociÉtÉ Nationale des Petroles du Congo (SNPC), was reorganized to become a holding company with seven subsidiaries.
In April 2006, Madagascar opened up 96 new offshore oil and Natural Gas blocks for tender. The government will accept bids from interested parties until November 17, 2006. The licensing round is overseen by the Office des Mines Nationales et des Industries Strategiques (OMNIS) and TGS-Nopec, which completed seismic data on the blocks. In 2005, U.K.-based Sterling Energy sold 70 percent of offshore Ambilobe and Ampasindava licenses to ExxonMobil. ExxonMobil plans to finance exploration work on the licenses. Additional international oil and natural gas companies active in Madagascar include Norsk Hydro (Norway), Vanco (U.S.), Vuna Resources (China) and Sun-Pec (China).