Monitor Exploration has revived oil exploration in the Nama Basin, 97 years after Namibia’s first oil well was drilled there in 1928.
The company’s new Petroleum Exploration Licence marks the return of modern hydrocarbon exploration to the country’s oldest petroleum frontier—an area that first attracted explorers nearly a century ago.
The Nama Basin, which spans southern Namibia into parts of South Africa, is geologically significant as the cradle of Namibia’s petroleum search.
In 1928, the South West Africa Petroleum Corporation drilled Berseba-1, the country’s first recorded oil well. It encountered a shallow gas blow-out at roughly 1,000 metres but failed to find commercial hydrocarbons. Despite the technical limitations of the time, the well demonstrated the presence of a working petroleum system, sparking early interest in the region’s potential.
Over the following decades, several companies returned to test the basin.
In 1963, the Artnell Exploration Company drilled the Vreda-1 well to a depth of approximately 1,840 metres, but no commercial discovery was made.
In 1968, De Beers Oil Holdings, in partnership with Shell/BP and Aquitaine SWA, acquired a concession covering parts of the southern basin and drilled the Tses-1 well to a depth of around 2,225 metres.
The well, like its predecessors, failed to yield hydrocarbons in commercial quantities, and the licence was later relinquished.
In 1992, the state-owned National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia (NAMCOR) undertook renewed geological work, including a 27,000 line-kilometre aeromagnetic survey and the drilling of two stratigraphic test wells, ND-1 and ND-2, to understand basin structure and sedimentary history.
Although these wells did not lead to commercial production, they generated vital subsurface data that still underpins exploration studies in the region today.
Between 2003 and 2009, the Hungarian firm INA Industrija Nafte conducted a reconnaissance programme across the Nama Basin.
The company acquired airborne gravity and magnetic data, followed by roughly 500 line-kilometres of 2D seismic surveys.
No wells were drilled during this phase, as INA’s programme focused on assessing petroleum potential rather than committing to high-cost exploration drilling.
These campaigns collectively established the Nama Basin as a frontier petroleum province with evidence of hydrocarbon generation, though not yet a commercial discovery.
Geological and geochemical studies have confirmed that the basin contains organic-rich shales and potential reservoirs within the late Precambrian to Cambrian Nama Group, including the Fish River and Gariep formations. Migration pathways and trap integrity, however, remain the key uncertainties that limited earlier exploration success.
Now, nearly a century after Berseba-1, Monitor Exploration Limited (MEL UK)—a privately held company based in the United Kingdom—has returned to the basin with a modern exploration strategy.
The new licence, held through its Namibian subsidiary MEL Oil & Gas Exploration Namibia (Pty) Ltd, covers a large portion of the central Nama Basin.
MEL plans to integrate historical datasets with new geophysical surveys, basin modelling, and stratigraphic analysis to define prospective zones for future drilling.
Funding for the programme comes partly from Somerschield Investments, a Windhoek-based investment firm that recently became a shareholder in MEL Namibia.
The financing will support early-stage geological and geophysical work, including data reprocessing and field verification.
The company will also engage with local authorities and communities in the Karas Region as part of its environmental and access permitting process.
Monitor’s re-entry into the Nama Basin coincides with renewed interest in Namibia’s onshore petroleum systems, as exploration success offshore in the Orange Basin has highlighted the country’s wider hydrocarbon potential.
The basin’s structural and sedimentary characteristics, including its thickness and maturity of source rocks, make it a prime candidate for modern re-evaluation using advanced seismic and modelling technologies.
The company’s initial focus will be to update vintage seismic lines and reassess the locations of historical wells to define potential traps and reservoir targets better.
Once this work is completed, Monitor plans to rank drilling leads and advance toward a first exploration well later in the decade.
By returning to the Nama Basin, Monitor Exploration has revived activity in the birthplace of Namibia’s oil exploration.
Nearly a hundred years after Berseba-1 briefly ignited the flame of possibility, modern technology, local investment, and new data could finally reveal the resources that early explorers only glimpsed.
