Multiple oil drilling projects are set to commence next year, Ministry of Mines and Energy Petroleum Commissioner, Maggy Shino, has revealed.
“Namibia is seeing a rise in seismic surveys, and by the end of the year, the government is planning to announce a series of drilling projects that will take place during 2024,” Shino told the African Energy Chamber (AEC).
“We have an ongoing drilling campaign with three rigs currently busy drilling appraisal and exploration wells. We are expecting two more wells to be drilled before the end of 2023 in the deep waters.”
This comes as Namibia has quickly risen to become a highly attractive Exploration & Production market following three oil discoveries made in 2022 and 2023 by oil majors TotalEnergies (Venus) and Shell (Graff and Jonker-1X), off the coast of Namibia.
In terms of legislation, Shino said the Namibian government has no plans to change the current licensing structure in the country to ensure that the upstream market is “open for investment. We don’t want to force companies to make a decision in a licensing round but want to remain open for investment so that companies come when they are ready.”
Regarding the country’s prospects of joining the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Shino said, “we see great value that an organization like OPEC has in managing the dynamics of the market to ensure that the industry thrives. We would like to join at the right time.”
Erik Meyer, Senior Technical Research Analyst at S&P Global, said the oil discoveries made in Namibia have “unlocked Namibia’s deepwater potential, with a number of prospects not yet explored in the Orange Basin. There is a lot of potential in the basin, and we could see future large-scale discoveries.”
He added that both Guyana and Namibia rank among the world’s top 25 basins by identified reserves, with Guyana leading at 18 billion barrels of discovered hydrocarbons, while Namibia ranks high with its Venus and Graff-1 discoveries.
TotalEnergies has allocated almost 50% of its global exploration budget of N$5.5 billion (US$300 million) to Namibia this year, hoping to confirm a multibillion-barrel discovery on block 2913b within the Orange Basin.
Shell Namibia Upstream B.V, a subsidiary of multinational oil and gas company Shell Plc, has entered into a N$1.7-billion contract extension with Northern Ocean for continued work in the country using the Deepsea Bollsta.
According to government estimates, the Shell and TotalEnergies discoveries have the potential to generate annual taxes and royalties ranging from N$60 billion to N$95 billion, with the potential to create 3,600 jobs at the peak of production.
