Total plans to launch 12 large oil and gas projects over the next two years, the oil major said on March 03, noting its exploration budget may rise next year as it searches for more reserves. "We expect twelve major projects to be launched in 2011 and 2012," Matthieu Got, an investor relations manager at Total, told an oil seminar held in the Norwegian capital.
"Our global budget for exploration for 2011 is increased to $2.1 billion from $1.8 billion and it may increase further." Like other oil companies, Total is seeking to secure more resources around the world.
On March 02 it became the third energy major to forge an alliance in Russia this year, agreeing to pay $4 billion for a stake in top gas independent Novatek and joining its Arctic gas project.
The deal strengthens Total's move away from downstream operations and its focus towards upstream projects. Another area Total is looking to explore is offshore Angola, where the company is in the process of securing three licences in the country's ultra-deepwater fields, the so-called "pre-salt licences".
"They are very promising because they look very similar to Brazil's," said Got. Brazil, across the Atlantic Ocean from Angola, also holds ultra-deepwater oil and gas reservoirs that are considered by oil companies as some of the most promising world-wide.
Off Norway, currently Total's largest oil production centre, Got said the firm would be involved in developing four new fields, two of which,
Ofon 2 and Hild, it will operate. Ofon 2 is thought to hold reserves of some 250 million barrels of oil equivalent and will come on stream in 2014 with a daily output capacity of about 70,000 barrels of oil.
Hild, which is estimated to hold reserves of some 150 million barrels of oil equivalent, is expected to start production in 2015 with a daily output capacity of about 80,000 barrels. Total will participate as a partner in two other new projects off the Nordic country, Ekofisk South and Eldfisk 2, which are operated by Conoco Phillips.
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