Two offshore projects have started production in Angola, adding a total of 60,000 barrels per day to national output.

According to the country’s national oil and gas agency, ANPG, on Wednesday, the development is an attempt by the country to stabilise waning crude oil production.

The country is Africa’s second-largest oil producer after Nigeria, but its oil production has halved because of maturing fields since reaching a peak of around 2 million bpd in 2008.

It has, however, overhauled its oil and gas regulations to attract energy companies and help stabilise oil production.

Last year, President João Lourenço approved a law that offers new incentives to incrementally expand production in offshore blocks, after Angola decided to leave OPEC following a spat over crude output allocations.

Both the offshore CLOV Phase 3 development and the BEGONIA project will separately produce 30,000 bpd.

Located in Block 17, the CLOV 3 satellite project will be linked to an existing floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel and will help Angola maintain its overall production above 1 million bpd, government and company officials said.

“This is good news for the country. First oil is always very important,” Paulino Jerónimo, chairman of the board of directors of the National Agency for Oil, Gas, and Biofuels (ANPG), said in a statement.

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Block 17 is operated by TotalEnergies with a 38% stake, together with Equinor (22.16% stake), ExxonMobil (19%), Azule Energy (15.84%) and Sonangol E&P (5%).

Situated some 150 kilometres (93 miles) off Angola’s coastline, BEGONIA is the country’s first inter-block subsea development that links Blocks 17 and 17/06 and uses the Pazflor FPSO.

“We will produce oil from one block using existing facilities from another,” Martin Deffontaines, general manager of TotalEnergies Angola, said in a statement.