Luanda — A new oil deposit dubbed "Dione-1" was discovered at Block 31, in the deep waters of the Angolan offshore, 390 kilometres to the north-east of Luanda, by the National Fuel Society of Angola (Sonangol) and the oil firm BP Exploration Limited, ANGOP learnt this Wednesday from a communiqué of the Angolan company.

According to the press release of Sonangol, with the discovery of this new deposit, found below a water layer of 1,696 metres until a total vertical depth of 3,272 metres, whose production capacity shall be of over 5,000 barrels of oil/day. This is the tenth finding at Block 31.

According to the document, the new reservoir is nine kilometres from the "Juno" deposit, in the south-east region of Block 31.

With Sonangol EP as the concessionary and BP as the operator, Block 31 is a joint-venture among the firms Sonangol EP (20%), BP Exploration (Angola) Limited (26, 67%), ESSO Exploration and Production Angola (Block31) Limited (25%), Statoil Angola AS, subsidiary of StatoilHydro ASA (13,33%), Marathon International Petroleum Angola Block 31 (10%) and Tepa (Block 31) Limited (5%).