British multinational oil and gas company, Shell Plc, will soon start a three-well exploration and appraisal drilling campaign offshore Namibia centred on its Graff oil and gas discovery.
The oil major operates PEL 0039 with a 45% working interest, together with QatarEnergy (45%) and National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia (10%). PEL 0039 covers approximately 12,000km² in deep water offshore Namibia.
“There will be a short mobilisation period and we expect to begin that contract in early December,” Odfjell Drilling CEO Kjetil Gjersdal told Upstream.
Energy experts assert that once an exploration well has found hydrocarbons, considerable effort is still required to accurately assess the potential of the discovery. And the role of appraisal is to provide cost-effective information that will be used for subsequent decisions (development) and this will be done through the drilling of more wells to collect information and samples from the reservoir and other seismic surveys might also be acquired in order to better define the reservoir.
This comes as Northern Ocean’s semi-submersible Deepsea Bollsta, which was chartered by Shell on a 12-month contract valued at N$2.1 billion and has an option to extend the deal for a further six months, has arrived in Namibian waters.
Built by Hyundai Heavy Industries and delivered in 2019, the semi-sub initially worked for Lundin offshore Norway, but since March 2022 was warmed-stacked outside Bergen awaiting new work.
After being awarded the contract in late August, Northern Ocean raised N$678 million (US$40 million) to fund the harsh environment semi-sub’s reactivation cost.
The Shell exploration activity comes after the company immediately drilled a follow-up well called La Rona, which — unlike with Graff — did not reveal the results.
According to Northern Ocean, its rig will also have to drill in waters up to 2,400 metres deep, which implies one or more wells will be spudded to the west of Graff.
The discovery well lies in 2,000 metres of water, some 270 kilometres from Oranjemund and was drilled to a total depth of 5,376 metres.
TotalEnergies – which early this year announced the Venus-1X discovery, located approximately 290 kilometres off the coast of Namibia, in the deep-water offshore exploration thought to straddle block 2913B and 2912 that covers approximately 8,215km² – is targeting to start the appraisal process of its Namibian oil find in the third quarter of 2023 and the second quarter of 2024.
The oil major, which submitted its application for an Environmental Clearance Certificate with the Ministry of Mines and Energy and the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism, recently contracted SLR Environmental Consulting (Namibia) to begin work on the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment.
According to SLR, the exploration and appraisal process is set to be undertaken in block 2912 off the Coast of Southern Namibia, with up to 10 exploration and/or appraisal wells targeted, a process expected to take between three and four months to complete drilling and testing of each well.
TotalEnergies, alongside National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia, QatarEnergy, and Impact Oil and Gas early this year announced the Venus-1X discovery, located approximately 290 kilometres off the coast of Namibia, in the deep-water offshore exploration thought to straddle block 2913B and 2912, which covers approximately 8,215 km².
Consultant Wood Mackenzie estimates the Namibia oil find could contain about 6.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent of recoverable reserves.
Research conducted by investment advisory firm Cirrus Capital revealed that the country has the potential to generate over N$500 billion in revenue in the coming decade through taxes and royalties from the oil sector, with the Ministry of Mines and Energy forecasting the government to collect 55% of all revenues to be generated from oil through taxes.
