France's Total to tap Angola oil field

Oil giant Total will start production at new $10-billion deep-water oil fields in Angola by next year, the firm announced Thursday. Angola's top oil producer aims to put out 160,000 barrels a day over 20 years from the four deep-water fields, which it started developing in 2010. The project would significantly boost production from Angola, which is already Africa's second largest producer after Nigeria. Total already produces a third of Angola's daily 1.8 million barrels output. "Total produces over 600,000 barrels of oil a day in Angola and this figure will increase even more next year when the... project starts production," the head of the firm's Angolan subsidiary Jean-Michel Lavergne told a news conference. The fields needed a $10-billion (eight-billion-euro) investment to exploit proven reserves of around 505 million barrels. Once complete, thirty-four undersea oil wells northwest of the capital Luanda will link to the country's first offshore oil platform. Oil revenues have helped Angola grow at nearly ten percent a year over the past decade. But two-thirds of the population live with under $2 a day, following a 27-year civil war which ended in 2002