Abstract The Girassol field, discovered in 1996, lies offshore Angola in water depths around 1350 m. The development project calls for the drilling of 40 subsea wells which will target shallow oil bearing tertiary reservoirs constituted of highly permeable unconsolidated sand layers. Although pore pressure is hydrostatic, well control is an issue, as there is a high swab kick risk, mainly for the long horizontal wells. This paper reviews some essential particularities of West Africa deep water drilling operations which make well control challenging; the objective is to highlight key parameters related to well control situations in this environment such as low temperatures, very low fracture gradient, problems induced by the risk of major lost circulation, and all the consequences of the BOP position at mudline, sometimes nearer to well TD than to surface. A new theoretical control approach is proposed, based on the classical Driller's method, offering an optimized choice of the slow circulating rate and some easy-to-follow control curves. A graphical synthesis associated with the essential equations of the wellbore pressures at the different stages of the control operation will be detailed. This method intends to be fully efficient even in extreme situations such as a swab gas influx in a long horizontal drain with significant choke line pressure losses. Validation has been made by using an advanced kick simulator. The objective is to propose to Girassol operations staff a new type of kill sheet. New operational well control guidelines, combining essentially the experience gained while drilling Angola Bloc 17 exploration and appraisal wells, and the theoretical approach already introduced, are also presented in this paper.