Eq. Guinea says oil output to stay around 250,000 bpd
LONDON, Nov 18 (Reuters) - Equatorial Guinea's oil production has fallen to around 250,000 barrels a day (bpd) and is likely to remain largely unchanged for the foreseeable future as declining output in existing fields is offset by new production, its vice energy minister said on Wednesday.
"We are expecting in two years some of the wells that are already producing, Zafiro and different ones, probably they will start dropping production," Gabriel Obiang Lima told journalists on the sidelines of an African oil and gas conference in London.
He added current output, including condensate was around 248,000 bpd.
Equatorial Guinea has been a growth hotspot for West Africa's booming oil and gas industry over the last decade, and is now the region's third largest producer, after Nigeria and Angola.
U.S.-based Noble (NBL.N) is developing the Aseng field offshore Equatorial Guinea and expects first production from the field by mid-year 2012 at 50,000 bpd.
"That's when the Noble plan of development will pick up and we will be able to maintain that plateau...around 250,000 bpd. The idea is that by the time some of the decline starts in the Zafiro we will have started first production," the minister said.
He said he was happy with an oil price above $64 a barrel, but added that even a significant drop in crude prices would not hold back the country's oil sector development.
"This is a country with only a 1 million population. Even if oil prices go very low we still have enough revenue. Even $9 is OK," he said. "We would prefer to have $100 or $200." (Reporting by Joe Brock and Daniel Fineren; editing by James Jukwey)
