The National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia (NAMCOR) says the recent potential oil find by its partners, Shell Namibia Upstream B.V and Qatar Energy, is a strong validation of the country’s oil deposits.
This comes as the Graff-1 well is said to have proved a working petroleum system for light oil in the Orange Basin, offshore Namibia, 270 km from the town of Oranjemund, where drilling operations commenced in early December 2021 and were safely completed in early February 2022.
“We hope that this discovery puts to rest doubts about the hydrocarbon potential of Namibia and opens a new dawn in the country’s future prosperity,” NAMCOR Managing Director Immanuel Mulunga said on Friday.
He said in the coming months, “we will perform extensive laboratory analyses to gain a better understanding of the reservoir quality and potential flow rates achievable. Whilst we can learn a great deal from the results of Graff-1, we anticipate that further exploration activity, including a second exploration well, will be required to determine the size and recoverable potential of the identified hydrocarbons.”
Mulunga’s pronouncement comes after Namibia has sought to develop oil and gas fields for decades with no success.
However, the Ministry of Mines and Energy insists that a commercial discovery is yet to be made, with data and assessments still required to confirm the presence of an active petroleum system.
Shell holds a 45% stake in the offshore Petroleum Exploration License 39 (PEL 39) with a 45% interest held by Qatar Petroleum and a 10% held by the National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia (NAMCOR).
