When Namibia’s modern oil exploration era began in the early 2010s, few local names were as closely tied to it as Knowledge Katti.
Then, an emerging businessman with a growing interest in natural resources, Katti became one of the first Namibian entrepreneurs to enter the offshore oil industry — not as a miner or engineer, but as a local partner in a venture that would shape the country’s petroleum story for the next decade.
Katti’s entry into oil came through Kunene Energy (Pty) Ltd, his Namibian investment vehicle. In 2010, when HRT Participações em Petróleo S.A., a Brazilian independent oil company, arrived in Namibia, the government required all foreign petroleum operators to include a Namibian empowerment partner.
HRT, led by former Petrobras geologist Dr Marcio Mello, was acquiring an enormous spread of offshore acreage — ten Petroleum Exploration Licences (PELs 23–32) in the Walvis and Orange Basins, covering over 80,000 square kilometres.
Under the local content and empowerment rules, Kunene Energy became HRT’s Namibian partner, holding a 10% interest in HRT Africa Ltd, alongside the National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia (Namcor), which had another 10% carried stake.
HRT retained the remaining 80% and complete operational control.
At the time, this partnership structure was unprecedented. Namibia had never hosted such a large-scale offshore exploration programme, and Katti’s participation symbolised the start of a new era — one in which Namibians would directly hold stakes in frontier oil exploration.
In 2012, Portugal’s Galp Energia farmed into three of HRT’s licences — PEL 23, PEL 24, and PEL 28 — acquiring a 14% share. The partnership set the stage for what became Namibia’s first major deepwater drilling campaign.
The wells that changed the narrative
In 2013, HRT drilled three wells: Wingat-1, Murombe-1, and Moosehead-1. The first, Wingat-1, made history as the first well to recover live oil to the surface in Namibia. Although non-commercial, it confirmed the existence of an active petroleum system — a geological milestone that redefined the country’s oil potential.
Murombe-1 and Moosehead-1 followed, both encountering good reservoir sands but no trapped hydrocarbons.
By the end of the year, HRT had spent over US$200 million, found no commercial oil, and its stock price had collapsed. Within a year, the company restructured and merged with PetroRio, effectively ending its Namibian operations.
For Katti, that meant his first foray into oil ended with unfulfilled promise. But it also left him with something few others had: experience, data, and networks in a high-risk, high-reward frontier industry.
After HRT — laying the groundwork
When HRT exited, its offshore Petroleum Exploration Licences were gradually relinquished or re-awarded. But the data — the seismic studies, well logs, and reservoir samples — became part of Namibia’s national petroleum archive.
These very datasets later guided new entrants such as Shell, TotalEnergies, and Galp toward the same basins that HRT had once explored.
Katti, meanwhile, restructured his own interests. He began to invest in new ventures aligned with Namibia’s next phase of exploration.
By the late 2010s, he had founded Custos Energy, a Namibian company designed to participate directly in petroleum licences as a local equity partner and facilitator of international investment.
Custos and the Orange Basin boom
As Namibia’s offshore story reignited with the discovery of oil by Shell (Graff and Jonker) and TotalEnergies (Venus) in 2022, Custos Energy began to feature prominently in the new joint ventures taking shape in the Orange Basin.
Custos holds stakes in several strategic Petroleum Exploration Licences, including PEL 83, where Portugal’s Galp Energia is operator, alongside Namcor.
It was in this very licence that the Mopane oil discoveries were announced between 2023 and 2024, confirming the Orange Basin as one of the world’s most prospective new oil provinces.
Custos also holds a 15% interest in PEL 87, where exploration is ongoing in partnership with Pancontinental Energy (operator) and Namcor. These stakes give Custos direct participation in some of Namibia’s most valuable petroleum acreage.
Sintana Energy and global reach
Katti’s energy interests also expanded internationally through his role in Sintana Energy Inc., a Canadian-listed oil and gas exploration company with a growing Namibian portfolio.
He serves as an independent director on Sintana’s board and holds an estimated 22.5 million shares — roughly 6% of the company — a stake now valued at more than US$11 million.
Sintana Energy is a partner in Custos’ Namibian ventures, including PEL 83 and PEL 87. Together, the companies represent a bridge between foreign capital and local participation, echoing the structure first pioneered during HRT’s tenure but now under a new generation of partnerships.
A decade later — from risk to reward
More than ten years after HRT’s first well, Knowledge Katti’s name remains intertwined with Namibia’s oil journey — from its uncertain beginnings to its current promise of commercial production.
His business evolution mirrors the country’s own trajectory: from early risk-taking to strategic, locally anchored participation in one of Africa’s fastest-growing energy frontiers.
While HRT exited Namibia without success, it left behind the blueprint for how local participation would work. Katti, through Kunene Energy and later Custos, helped define that model — one that ensures Namibians hold an equity stake in their country’s natural resources.
Today, with Custos Energy embedded in discoveries like Mopane and partnerships stretching from Windhoek to Toronto, Katti’s early bet on oil has matured into a diversified presence across Namibia’s most promising petroleum basins.
From HRT’s historic but costly wells to the billion-barrel horizons of the Orange Basin, his story is that of a businessman who entered Namibia’s oil industry at its inception — and stayed long enough to see its potential finally realised.
