The Girassol Case, a leading story of 5 years of West African Deep Offshore discoveries.

Thierry Monmont TOTALFINAELF Paris, France Vice President Technology Africa 260 basins covering 35 Mkm2 are reported as deep offshore1, but there are only 3 main areas with large discoveries and production programs: the Brazilian Offshore, the Gulf of Mexico and the West African Deep Offshore (mainly so far, the Angolan and Nigerian sectors). In the West Africa Deep Offshore, TotalFinaElf is the largest player with 18 permits, 12 of them operated by it; in the last 5 years, 4 discoveries are already considered as giant (recoverable reserves greater than 500 Mb) and several other significant discoveries are under appraisal in the Angolan, Nigerian and Congolese sectors. The Girassol case is certainly the most impressive by : - timing: following the discovery made in March 1996, its full development was decided 22 months later in January 1998, with only 2 appraisal wells and first-oil is targeted for late 2001. - size and context: giant discovery made in 1,400 m of water depth, production is planed at about 200,000bopd without any gas flaring , - development scheme and innovative breakthroughs: with 40 sub-sea wells, 137km of flowlines and umbilicals, 277 diverless/guidelineless connections, a fully innovative seafloor-surface connection by 3 tower risers, a 2Mbbl Oil FPSO (the largest in the world), the project is the largest and most complex to be achieved in the deep offshore. The Girassol case will be used as a guide to illustrate the main difficulties to be overcome for producing within such a context, notably on: - reservoir, with evaluation of geosciences uncertainties in finalizing the development lay-out, - development, with the chosen technical options - production, with simulation and flow-insurance aspects - environmental concerns and local Angolan involvement, In addition, the status of the other West African Deep Offshore projects where TotalFinaElf is involved will be reviewed (ie Dalhia, Rosa-Lirio, Bonga, Akpo) to highlight the West African Deep Offshore part in the forthcoming deep offshore production.

i.e with a water depth greater than 500m and a sedimentary section above 2,000 meters