Petroleum commissioner Maggy Shino said Namibia’s strategy for the next few years is to drive as many investments into the explorations activities, embracing technological advancements and adding value to our existing data, creating innovative partnerships that enable the acquisitions of new proprietary and multiclient seismic data.
She also said Namibia intends to maintain an open licencing regime to ensure an extensive portfolio of oil and gas companies searching for more petroleum resources on the Namibian continental shelf.
Shino told the delegates attending the International Associations of Driller conference in Windhoek that within the upcoming months, final investment decisions will be made on the discoveries made by Total Energies, Shell, Galp and the existing Kudu Gas Field operated by BW Energies.
She said data analysis shows that the Namibian basin’s prospectivity and untapped potential are huge, with everything being bigger and better than we anticipated thus far.
According to Shino, there are four drilling rigs offshore Namibia in our prolific Orange Basin conducting both exploration and appraisal drilling campaigns operated by Shell, Total and Galp.
“We are expecting appraisal reports to be coming in from April this year going forward, and as soon as the results are finalised, we will communicate the volumetrics and commence the preparations of the next phase of the industry,” Shino said.
She added that with current reprocessing and ongoing interpretations of existing data, the potential for Namibia is confined to the Orange Basin and extends throughout the Luderitz, cutting across the Walvis and all the way to the Namibe.
She said that towards the end of the year, oil companies would continue with appraisal drilling with multiple wells campaigns and test the new plays identified by ReconAfrica, Rhino Resources, and Chevron, together with their joint venture partners.