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GE Oil & Gas has entered into a joint venture with a local contractor in Angola to supply subsea equipment to the country’s expanding offshore sector, while also boosting its position in Iraq and India.
GE and Angolan partner, GLS Holding, plan to invest an initial $175m to build a new manufacturing plant at Soyo in Zaire province under their new joint venture, GE-GLS Oil & Gas Angola.
The facility is due to be operational within two years and is set to create hundreds of jobs, with GE pledging to recruit and train mainly Angolan workers as part of a commitment to local content, according to Upstreamonline.
“In the growing Angolan oil sector, we see the market favourably as the demand for quality equipment is increasing, which is driving the need for greater manufacturing capacity,” said president of GE Oil & Gas Angola, Armindo Costa.
Angola’s current production of around two million barrels per day of oil is expected to increase in the coming years on the back of strong exploration and development activity, driven by earlier licence awards to the likes of Statoil and Total, with deep-water oil and gas fields set to be exploited using subsea technology.
GE signed a service pact last year with Angola LNG to provide technical support for two trains at the latter’s liquefied natural gas facility at Soyo.
Meanwhile, the global contractor has also opened a new technology and service centre at Basra in Iraq to help boost production from the Rumaila oilfield to further expand its presence in the country.
The centre will provide a range of services including installation and maintenance, testing, inspections, repair and storage.
In addition, GE has landed a deal with Cairn India to supply equipment for high-pressure and high-temperature drilling for further development of the Ravva oil and gas field off Andhra Pradesh, marking its first such contract in India.
The contractor will provide HPHT wellheads, mud line systems, spares and services under the contract, for which a value was not disclosed.
Cairn, which operates Ravva, is looking to tap fresh reserves at the field through the use of HPHT technology.