French oil and gas company Maurel & Prom (M&P) announced on Friday that it will be discontinuing its operations in Namibia after failing to attract investors willing to invest in a potential five-well wildcatting campaign in the Walvis Basin.
The Walvis Basin, situated off the coast of Namibia, is highly regarded as a potential hotspot for oil and gas exploration and has seen interest from various international oil companies due to its untapped reserves.
M&P launched a farm-out process in November 2022 with a view to finding a partner for exploration licenses PEL-44 and PEL-45, operated by M&P with an 85% working interest.
“The process ended during the first half of 2023 without resulting in any offers from companies invited to examine technical data on the two assets. M&P, therefore, decided not to apply to enter the next exploration phase, which includes drilling obligations, and the licenses for both PEL-44 and PEL-45 expired on 15 June 2023. This marks the end of the Group’s operations in Namibia,” the company said.
M&P’s Chief Executive Officer, Olivier de Langavant, said that the Euronext Paris-listed company was working on consolidating some of its assets while exiting those which do not fit with its capital allocation policy.
“M&P is consolidating its position on certain assets, with the extension of the Block 3/05 license in Angola, for example, while moving away from those which do not fit with its capital allocation policy. This explains the exit from the deepwater exploration licenses in Namibia in particular,” he said.
Namibia has quickly risen to become a highly attractive Exploration & Production market following oil discoveries made in 2022 and 2023 by oil majors TotalEnergies (Venus) and Shell (Graff and Jonker-1X), in the Orange Basin, offshore Namibia.
The country is expected to announce multiple oil drilling projects set to commence next year, according to the Ministry of Mines and Energy.
Namibia could register a gross domestic product (GDP) of U$37 billion at peak production level from the country’s newly discovered oil reserves, according to the National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia’s (NAMCOR).
