British Petroleum (BP) announced the start of oil production and exploration at an offshore field called Platina, about 160km off the coast of Angola. It is expected to make 30,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) available to the market at peak production, with access to 44 million barrels of oil reserves.

According to BP, the project will help the world's second largest oil exporter stabilize declining production after years of reduced investment in the sector.

"With this and other projects, we will gradually meet the goals of preventing production decline and increasing production levels with the bidding of ongoing projects," said Belarmino Chitangueleca, CEO of Angola's National Agency of Oil, Gas and Biofuels.

The Platinum field will be connected to BP's existing floating production, storage and offloading system in Angola's Block 18.

The project is part of the Greater Plutonium development, which also includes the Gallium, Chromium, Palladium and Cobalt fields.

According to a statement from BP, The project was delivered 44 days ahead of schedule and 25% below the original budget.

BP Angola Senior Vice President Adriano Bastos said, "Platina is a great example of the kind of project BP is developing, efficiently producing resilient resources from basins we know well and making the best use of our existing facilities.

BP, which is the field operator, has a 46% stake in Block 18. China Sinopec has a 37.72% stake, and Angola's national oil company Sonangol 16.28%.

After Nigeria, Angola is the largest oil exporter in the world. It produces about 1.3 million bpd, and about 17,900 million cubic feet of natural gas.