Galp Energia has announced plans to conduct a Drill Stem Test (DST) in the coming weeks to assess the commercial viability of the discovery of a significant column of light oil from its Mopane 1X exploration well. This comes after the Lisbon-based operator’s previous announcement on 2 January regarding a positive sign of hydrocarbon.
“The drilling operations at Mopane-1X will proceed to explore deeper targets. Upon completion, the rig will be relocated to the Mopane-2X location to further evaluate the extent of the Mopane discovery,” the company said on Wednesday.
Galp began drilling the Mopane-1X probe on November 17 in Petroleum Exploration Licence (PEL) 93 as part of a two-well exploration campaign.
This development follows Galp’s signing of a N$911 million (US$50 million) contract with SFL Corporation for the semi-submersible rig Hercules.
Galp operates PEL 83 with an 80% interest, while Namibia’s National Petroleum Corporation holds 10%, and Custos Energy, half-owned by Sintana, has a 10% stake.
PEL 83 is situated north of PEL 39, home to Shell’s basin-opening discoveries at Graff-1, La Rona-1, and Jonker-1. It is also positioned north and west of PEL 56, where TotalEnergies announced its giant oil discovery at Venus-1. Both Shell and Total continue to progress exploration and appraisal activities on their respective blocks.
Businessman Knowledge Katti has an interest through his company, Custos Energy, a Namibian independent oil and gas exploration company focused on attracting investment and expertise to the Namibian offshore industry.
