Eni Hits Oil For The 5th Time In Block 15/06 Offshore Angola

Eni S.p.A. (NYSE:E) recently announced that it has discovered a new oil site offshore Angola. The latest find marks the Italian energy giant’s fifth oil discovery in the prolificdeep-waterBlock 15/06 in the past 12 months. The discovery occurred at the Agidigbo exploration prospect.

Post-drill results are indicating that 300-400 million barrels of light oil is in place. At the site, the company used the West Gemini drillship of Seadrill Limited at a water depth of 275 meters. The drillship was used to reach a total depth of 3800 meters. At the prospect, Eni has an appraisal campaign planned for early 2020. Production from the prospect is expected to be fast-tracked to the Armada Olombendo FPSO, near the East Hub facilities, which are located around 10kilometersaway.

Notably, the latest discovery follows the Kalimba, Afoxe, Agogo and Ndungu findings. Total light oil from these five findings is projected at around 1.8 billion barrels. The latest discovery will further strengthen the company’s presence in the country as well as in Africa. Notably, during the end of last month, Eni farmed in to three blocks offshore Mozambique, wherein Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE:XOM) is the operator.

Notably, Eni is present in Angola since 1980. It is the operator at the Block 15/06 with a 36.84% interest. It has Sonangol P&P and SSI Fifteen Limited as partners, with respective stakes of 36.84% and 26.32%. Two oil development projects, namely West Hub and East Hub, having a production capacity of around 155,000 barrels of oil per day, are currently active at the block.

This discovery might give a positive push to Angola too, as aging fields and lack of foreign investments resulted in lower hydrocarbon output, thereby affecting the country’s exports. Notably, Angola, the second-largest producer in Africa, is a member of Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries or OPEC.

Price Performance

Eni has lost 12.7% in the past year compared with 14.4% collective decline of the industry it belongs to.

Zacks Rank and Stocks to Consider

Eni currently has a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell). Some better-ranked players in the energy space are Repsol SA (NYSE:E) and TOTAL S.A. (NYSE:TOT) . While Repsol sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), TOTAL carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Repsol’s earnings per share estimates for 2019 have increased from $2.03 to $2.04 in the past 60 days. It has witnessed two positive estimate revisions during the said time period.

TOTAL’s earnings growth is projected at 6.9% through 2019.

Today's Best Stocks from Zacks

Would you like to see the updated picks from our best market-beating strategies? From 2017 through 2018, while the S&P 500 gained +15.8%, five of our screens returned +38.0%, +61.3%, +61.6%, +68.1% and +98.3%.

This outperformance has not just been a recent phenomenon. From 2000 – 2018, while the S&P averaged +4.8% per year, our top strategies averaged up to +56.2% per year.

See their latest picks free >>