The Dalia field came on stream offshore Angola on December 13, 2006 and will produce 240,000 barrels per day of oil in full swing, spurring the growth of Angola’s oil industry and the local economic benefits it delivers. The Total-operated project presented unique technological challenges.

Angola’s economy rebounded with the end of the civil war in 2002, and the government is forecasting economic growth of 35% in 2007. Virtually all of this growth will be driven by oil production, which topped 1.4 million barrels per day at end-2005 and could reach 2.5 million barrels per day in 2011.

Active in Angola for 50 years, Total is a major player in the country’s oil and gas industry, operating the deepwater Girassol (250,000 barrels per day) and Dalia fields.

Strengthening Skills and the Industrial Base
Upgrading local skills is a priority of the Angolan government and a core component of Total’s strategy. Under our Angolanization policy, more than 80% of the personnel on Dalia’s Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) unit will be Angolans by end-2007, representing nearly 90 people. An extensive training program has given 50 Angolan engineers and technicians the knowledge and skills they need to supervise the fabrication of and operate certain equipment. The program also involved an “industrial transfer,” since the project gave priority to local content in filling jobs and purchasing goods and services, when resources allowed. Dalia represented about two million man-hours of onsite labor between 2003 and 2006 and prompted the construction of modern plants in Luanda, Lobito and Dande to produce the sophisticated equipment required.

Angolan yards manufactured some of the umbilicals, the FPSO’s anchor piles, the production and injection lines and the loading buoy, in addition to performing final assembly and testing of well manifolds.

Playing a Role in Human Development
Total works with the government and local institutions to spur community development. Total E&P Angola’s community investment plan focuses primarily on health care, education, training and economic development.

Total has teamed up with Angolan NGOs Agrisud and Okutiuka to finance agricultural projects around Luanda and in national reconstruction zones. Small farmers, former refugees, combatants and other demobilized soldiers receive training, support and advice to develop market gardening and subsistence crops. The resulting local agricultural output has improved the food security of nearly 400 people in the rural communities of Cabiri and Caop and 5,000 people in Samboto.

In health care, Total E&P Angola has partnered with the French NGO Douleurs Sans Frontières (Pain Without Borders) to set up a system of local medical care delivered by mobile units. Services include vaccinations, measures to combat pandemics such as cholera and malaria, knowledge transfers to local health care providers, training, and the promotion of community health education. More than 80 communities near Total-operated facilities, or 23,000 people, now have access to health care.

The results are telling—every one of the more than 5,000 children has been seen and all pregnant women receive vaccinations and regular checkups. The program is expected to branch out into other communities and to add clinic renovation, opportunistic disease monitoring and other services.

Total E&P Angola will have a community support budget of $4.5 million in 2007, much of it allocated to the Dalia project.

	A Strong Focus on Safety and the Environment As always, Total has made safety a priority on Dalia. With 15 million man-hours worked, the project has employed 4,600 people at 20 industrial sites in Africa, Europe, Asia and the United States. Dalia did not log a single major accident: recordable injuries in 2006 totaled only 8 per million hours worked and the most serious one resulted in only ten days’ lost time. Dalia’s operational-phase targets are in line with those of Total E&P Angola—a maximum acceptable lost time injury rate of 0.7 and a total recordable injury rate of 2.5. To achieve them, management is prioritizing a behavior-based HSE approach involving training and regular audits and inspections. Care was taken to minimize environmental impact, another cornerstone of Dalia’s HSE targets, from the engineering phase on. Impact assessments identified, quantified and evaluated the environmental impact of the project’s various phases, from design to production to dismantling. Dalia’s zero flaring under normal operation and reinjection of production water into the reservoirs make the project a benchmark for environmental responsibility. The Dalia facility is expected to eventually earn ISO 14001 certification, as are Block 17’s other production units. Girassol should be the first certified, in 2007.

	A Technological Challenge               Project partners: Sonangol (concessionaire) Total E&P Angola (operator, 40%) Esso Exploration Angola (Block 17) Ltd. (20%) BP Exploration (Angola) Ltd. (16.67%) Statoil Angola Block 17 AS (13.33%) Norsk Hydro Dezassete a.s. (10%)  A Technological Challenge : Reserves buried 800 meters beneath the seabed in 1,200 to 1,500 meters of water. Highly viscous, sour crude. 71 subsea wells, including 37 producers tied into nine manifolds. 31 water injection wells and three gas injection wells 160 kilometers of pipelines and umbilicals to transfer the oil to the FPSO.