TotalEnergies said an oil discovery off Namibia could be a “giant,” boosting speculation that the country is home to a prolific new hydrocarbon basin.
The find in the southwest African country “seems to be a very large” or even “giant” one, based on the results from a single well, TotalEnergies Chief Executive Officer Patrick Pouyanne said in a presentation to investors in New York.
The French major energy producer announced an initial discovery in Namibia in February, weeks after Shell Plc also drilled a successful offshore well there. The country has high hopes for its nascent petroleum industry, predicting that it could double GDP by 2040.
TotalEnergies, alongside QatarEnergy, and Impact Oil and Gas’s Venus-1X discovery is located approximately 290 kilometres off the coast of Namibia, in the deep-water offshore exploration Block 2913B, which covers approximately 8,215 km².
Oil finds off Africa have been few and far between in recent years, with exploration activity dropping to a single rig in 2020 as the global pandemic took hold. In the months following the initial discoveries in Namibia, executives at TotalEnergies and Shell had sought to damp speculation that they had found significant resources.
Namcor estimates that Namibia could generate US$5.6 billion in revenue for the country at peak production from its two oil finds, which have the potential to double the country’s economy, which Bloomberg estimates at US$11 billion by 2040.
Consultant Wood Mackenzie estimates that Namibia discoveries could contain about 6.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent of recoverable reserves.
British multinational oil and gas company Shell Plc has contracted Northern Ocean’s Deepsea Bollsta to carry out drilling offshore Namibia under a 12-month contract.
Increased oil exploration in Namibia comes after more N$30 billion has been invested by oil companies since independence towards exploration, according to the Namibia Petroleum Operators Association.-The Brief/ moneyweb
