Libya has been at the forefront of oil investors for much of the year. The nation of Angola has also been a source of supply disruptions in 2011, helping push crude oil prices higher.
Angola has been a true success story. Over the last decade, it more than doubled its production. Output rose from 750,000 barrels a day in 2001 to a peak of nearly 2 million barrels a day in January 2010.
The bad news for the global oil market is that the west African country, which joined OPEC in 2007, has seen its output fall significantly this year.
In 2010, Angola pumped an average of 1.85 million barrels of oil per day. But in 2011, it has managed to pump out just an average of 1.65 million barrels a day of oil.
Investors may shrug their shoulders and say 'so what?'. After global oil production is roughly 87 million barrels a day and Angola producers about 2 percent of that total.
However, Angola is far more important to the global oil market than appears at first glance.
Angola pumps a particularly low-sulfur crude, which is highly sought after by Chinese and Indian refineries to produce high quality gasoline and diesel.
China bought about 45 percent of the country's oil production last year. The United States and India are the next two biggest buyers, accounting for another third of Angola's oil exports.
So the global oil market has looked with interest as Angola's oil production stalled due to a lack of new projects and glitches in several existing oil fields. There were technical problems (water injection among others) in the Saxi-Batuque field operated by ExxonMobil (NYSE:BP) and the Greater Plutino field operated by BP PLC ADR (NYSE: BP).
The good news now is that the production problems are being solved. In addition, new oil fields are coming onstream.
The Plazflor field, operated by France's Total SA ADR (NYSE: TOT), will add 200,000 barrels of output while several projects from BP will bring another 150,000 barrels online. Additionally, Exxon's Kizomba-D cluster fields will add on another 150,000 barrels a day.
In total, Angolan production capacity should recover by 400,000 barrels a day year-on-year, alleviating some pressure off high oil prices which is good news for consumers.
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