Shell has discovered at least 500 million barrels of recoverable oil in Namibia’s Orange Basin, Petroleum Commissioner Maggy Shino has said.
Shino told Energy Capital & Power that Shell Namibia Upstream had found 200 million barrels at Graff-1 and another 300 million barrels at Jonker-1X.
TotalEnergies’ Venus discovery, meanwhile, she estimated held up to 2 billion barrels of recoverable oil.
“We have commenced appraisal work on the Graff-1 and Venus-1 discoveries, and the initial results have been very encouraging,” she said.
“We are making ongoing evaluations to determine the exact size of these fields and continuously improve our estimates to determine commerciality.”
Shell has drilled four discoveries on PEL 39: Graff, Jonker, La Rona, and Lesedi.
TotalEnergies drilled its Venus discovery on PEL 56.
“It has been a journey to get here – we drilled close to 37 dry wells prior to these discoveries,” said Shino.
“The plan is to accelerate development of the oil finds in Namibia,” she added without specifying a timeline for when the government expects production to begin.
Currently, there are four rigs operating offshore Namibia: the Deepsea Mira, Tungsten Explorer, Deepsea Bollsta, and the Hercules semi-submersible.
Shino said work is ongoing to determine flow rates and to “explore for more upside potential.”
The Petroleum Commissioner predicted that it would take six months to gather the data. She noted that Namibia’s oil and gas industry is only beginning, with deepwater potential in the country’s three other offshore basins.
“Our geological data confirm that there are still many prospects mapped with untapped reservoirs both onshore and offshore, and for that, we will continue promoting the country’s petroleum potential.-ENP
