ExxonMobil Corp’s deepwater Kizomba A oil project offshore Angola has started production, the firm said.

“We can confirm that production has started,” an official at the company’s Angolan subsidiary Esso Exploration Angola (Block 15) Limited said.
First oil from Kizomba A  was widely expected in the third quarter. The field has a production target of 250,000 barrels per day and is estimated to hold recoverable reserves of around one billion oil equivalent barrels.
Esso celebrated its first operated production in the southwest African country in November last year with oil flowing from the Xikomba field, also in Block 15.
Xikomba has the capacity to churn out 80,000 bpd, and together with Kizomba A and its sister field Kizomba B, also expects to yield 250,000 bpd when it comes on stream in 2006, make Block 15 potentially the most prolific offshore Angola.