TotalEnergies’ CEO Patrick Pouyanne says the company is targeting a significant one billion-barrel resource with its next deepwater well offshore Namibia.
The upcoming Tamboti-1X well is set to be drilled in the northeastern part of Block 2913B, where the company’s massive Venus discovery is located.
“Oh, it’s big. Well, it’s an elephant—a billion-barrel target. But you have to be optimistic, especially when you’re operating in a prolific basin like this. So yes, it’s big,” he said at an investor event.
Also speaking at the event, TotalEnergies’ upstream head Nicolas Terraz noted that Tamboti was de-risked by a well drilled last year on the Mangetti prospect.
The Mangetti-1X well encountered two reservoirs, which are believed to hold 1.5 billion barrels of OIP. The well was also drilled deeper to appraise the northern reach of the Venus discovery.
“Future exploration, today we have a drilling rig on its way to Namibia to drill a prospect called Tamboti, which is north of Venus, which was de-risked by a well-drilled master, a well-called Mangetti,” he said.
TotalEnergies is advancing its exploration and development activities on its Venus oil discovery. Following two successful appraisal wells, the company is evaluating a development plan targeting production of up to 160,000 barrels per day.
The Venus field, discovered in 2022, is estimated to contain significant volumes of light oil and associated gas
“Now, continuing Namibia exploration, the first on Venus we drilled two successful appraisal wells. So we are now progressing the studies on a development of 160,000 barrels per day. There is a material volume of oil, there is also quite a bit of gas that needs to be rejected,” he said.
He further explained that to optimise the project’s economics, the company is refining well placement and the design of the floating production, storage, and offloading vessel, aiming to maintain costs below US$20 per barrel.
The approach aligns with the company’s strategy to ensure investments meet specific financial criteria.
“So today the work of our teams and engineers is to optimise the wells placement, to optimise the SPSO, to ensure that we have a project that is within our investment criteria, particularly with a cost below US$20 per barrel. For all we are planning, of course, to follow the same approach as the Suriname in terms of working with our contractors early,” he said.
