Most of Angola’s oil production in July has been sold following a wave of acquisitions by Chinese companies, West African oil dealers in London told Dow Jones Newswires. Of a total of 55 shipments with 53.76 barrels of oil just two remain available, one of crude oil from the Nemba field, operated by Italy’s ENI; and another from the Girasol field, owned by UK company BP. The dealers said that the two shipments would either by quickly sold or would go into the refineries of the two groups themselves.
The sources cited by Dow Jones said that the Chinese companies had increased their acquisitions of Angola oil in July, with China International United Petroleum & Chemicals Co. (Unipec) acquiring over half of the available oil. “We estimate that Chinese companies have acquired 34 million barrels this month,” another dealer said, adding that Chinese purchases usually accounted for 25 to 30 million barrels. Angola is expected to export some 1.74 million barrels of oil per day in July, close to the 1.76 million level of this month due to a production problem in the Plutónio field.
