Namibia’s upstream oil and gasoline sector has develop into a spotlight of intense curiosity lately. The Orange Basin, off the nation’s west coast, captured the vitality sector’s creativeness in 2022, when Shell and TotalEnergies introduced the invention of sunshine oil and pure gasoline there, within the Graff and Jonker fields. In 2023, Galp joined the occasion, asserting their Mopane discovery, and enthusiasm soared.
Till now, the Namibian upstream has been targeted on exploration, and the nation has but to attain any industrial manufacturing. Nevertheless, the enormous discoveries made since 2022 have modified the sport and made Namibia a world exploration sizzling spot.
Of the three main discoveries, the TotalEnergies Venus discover would be the largest, with no less than 1 Bbl of recoverable oil assets having been discovered.
All of these discoveries are but to be lastly appraised, which shall be essential in figuring out their industrial viability. Points corresponding to permeability, gasoline/oil ratio and reservoir high quality should be addressed. If developed, Venus would even be the deepest offshore development ever.
Manufacturing prospects
A current Namibia country report by AOW mentioned TotalEnergies was anticipated to start out manufacturing round 2028. By early 2030, all three tasks might be producing, and Namibian oil output might be nearing 1 mil bbl/d. TotalEnergies just lately announced it could exit its discoveries offshore South Africa to deal with its Namibia belongings.
Earlier than the Orange Basin success, fewer than 20 offshore wells had been drilled throughout Namibia’s Walvis, Namibe, Lüderitz, and Orange Basins since exploration started in 1974. Nevertheless, prior to now two years, TotalEnergies, Shell, and Galp have made eight discoveries throughout three blocks within the Orange Basin, representing an estimated 3.5 billion barrels of probably recoverable oil.
Curiosity within the deep waters of the Orange Basin has risen exponentially. Galp’s success seems to substantiate prospectivity extends north from the acreage held by Shell and TotalEnergies, and is encouraging for operators corresponding to Chevron, Woodside and Rhino Assets. All three have acreage adjoining Galp’s block and plan E+A campaigns in 2024/25.
Apart from appraisal, TotalEnergies will drill no less than yet one more exploration nicely in its PEL 56 licence space. There may additionally be a bidding warfare as main gamers look to farm-in to Galp’s Mopane.
ExxonMobil has acreage within the northern Namibe Basin – though this can be a completely different play that shall be examined first within the Angolan facet of the Namibe basin.
Important developments
Whereas the offshore Orange Basin has been dominating the headlines, there have been important developments in onshore frontier basins. In July, Reconnaissance Power spudded the Naingopo exploration nicely. The business shall be carefully monitoring this nicely, as it’s the first exploration of a beforehand untapped basin.
The primary discovery in Namibian waters was the Kudu gasoline area – about 130km off Swakopmund. This area has remained undeveloped since being found in ’74, with quite a few operators struggling to make it work. BW Energy entered Kudu in 2017 and has made progress, with CEO Carl Arnet saying drilling might begin as early as next year.
Nevertheless, there stay questions, not least whether or not gasoline from the deep and ultra-deepwater discoveries shall be used within the improvement. A dispute over entry to diamond-rich land across the city of Luderitz is a risk as is the query of the place BW Power plans to land a pipeline from Kudu.
Nationwide oil firm NAMCOR operates quite a few offshore exploration blocks. WoodMacKenzie stories that Namibia has an enormous 230 000 sq. kilometres of licensed acreage; in comparison with established territory Norway, which has lower than 100 000. Nevertheless, Namibia’s potential stays vastly under-explored, provided that solely 20 deepwater wells have been sunk, in comparison with the hundreds in locations just like the North Sea or the Gulf of Mexico.
Namibia is working to vary this. The nation’s nationwide oil firm, Namcor, aspires to develop into a totally fledged operator by increasing into the downstream and sustainable sectors (together with hydrogen and artificial fuels). Namcor has taken an investor-friendly method, its fiscals stack up nicely, and phrases stay extremely engaging to traders, because it seems to be to maneuver the sector from the exploration to the manufacturing section.
- Owned by Sankofa Events, AOW: Investing in African Power is Africa’s main oil, gasoline & vitality occasion, uniting business leaders to develop coverage, share discoveries, safe funding, and form Africa’s vitality future. The occasion runs from 7 – 10 October 2024 on the CTICC 2, Cape City.