CAPITAL: LIBREVILLE

MONETARY UNIT: CFA FRANC

REFINING CAPACITY: 17,300 B/CD

PRODUCTION: 339,200 B/D

OIL/CONDENSATE RESERVES:

2.5 BILLION BBL

NATURAL GAS RESERVES: 1.2 TCF

Gabon hosted a one-day summit in November 1999 on central West African peace prospects, boundary disputes, and resource management.

Marathon-Santa Fe Snyder started up Tchatamba South field 20 miles off the coast on the Kowe permit 100 miles southeast of Port Gentil. Two wells in 150 ft of water were totaling 22,000 b/d of 44! gravity oil from reserves estimated at more than 27 million bbl.

Oil is produced to an unmanned platform and moved through a 12-in. pipeline to a Marathon-operated mobile offshore production unit and floating storage and offloading vessel in Tchatamba Marin field with a capacity of 40,000 b/d.

Energy Africa Gabon had an option to take as much as a 25% working interest in Tchatamba South. Late in 1999, it said development of Turnix, Niungo, and Ganga fields were under active consideration.

Santa Fe Snyder signed a production sharing contract covering the 945,000-acre Agali Block off the north coast in 200-2,500 m of water.

Total Gabon was starting a 4,400-sq-km, 4-month 3D seismic survey on the Astrid and Anton Marin blocks off southern Gabon. Other participants were Unocal, Vanco Energy, Kerr-McGee, and R&B Falcon.

Ocelot International Ltd., formerly Ocelot Energy Inc., obtained access to the only active onshore drilling rig in Gabon and was to drill two development wells at a cost of $8.5 million in Obangue field early in 2000.

Output from the two wells was to boost production to barge capacity of 2,200 b/d from 600 b/d in late 1999. Further development was to require con-struction of a 25 km pipeline.