Namibia has become a hot spot for oil exploration after several discoveries in recent years along its coast.
It has not yet produced any oil or gas, but oil majors such as TotalEnergies and Shell have made discoveries estimated at 2.6 billion barrels, and production in the southern African country is expected from Around 2030.
Discoveries have been made in the Orange Basin and there are other promising areas including the Luderitz, Kavango and Walvis Basins.
Below you will find detailed information on the latest developments (in alphabetical order):
CHEVRON
The American oil major is expected to begin exploration work later this year.
It signed a development agreement in April which will allow it to acquire an 80% operational stake in an offshore block in the Walvis basin.
Chevron Namibia Exploration Ltd is also the operator of PEL (Petroleum Exploration Licence) 90, a deepwater offshore block in the Orange Basin.
ENI, BP
Azule Energy, a joint venture between Italian companies Eni and BP for their Angolan assets, and exploration company Rhino Resources Namibia have entered into an operating agreement for a 42.5% stake in an offshore Orange Basin license , the companies said in May.
GALP
At the start of 2024, the Portuguese energy group carried out tests on its Mopane-1X and Mopane-2X wells and estimated in April that the Mopane field could contain at least 10 billion barrels of oil at the end of a first phase exploration.
The Mopane discovery, which is located at PEL 83, appears to be one of the largest made in the Orange Basin following successful exploration campaigns by TotalEnergies and Shell in recent years.
Galp has launched the sale of half of its stake in Mopane.
The company owns an 80% stake in block PEL 83, with the remaining 20% split between Namibian state-owned Namcor and Sintana Energy’s Namibian unit, Custos Energy.
SHELL
The oil major and its partners made a discovery described as “encouraging” in an exploration well off the coast of Namibia in February 2022.
Shell is exploring offshore oil and gas in PEL 39 of the Orange Basin with JV partners QatarEnergy and Namcor.
PEL 39 covers an area of 12,000 square kilometers and includes seven wells where drilling has been carried out. The Graff well could hold 2.38 billion barrels of oil and the Jonker-1X well 2.5 billion.
TOTAL ENERGIES
In January, the French oil and gas major agreed to acquire an additional 10.5% stake in block 2913B and a 9.39% stake in block 2912. The company is expected to spend around 30% of its $1 billion exploration and evaluation budget in Namibia in 2024.
It began operations in Namibia in 1964 and currently operates two deep offshore exploration blocks. Total has a direct stake of 40%, while QatarEnergy, Impact Oil and Gas and Namcor have stakes of 30%, 20% and 10%, respectively.
Block 2913B, located in the Orange Basin, contains the Venus 1-X well, where TotalEnergies aims to approve its first oil development in Namibia by the end of 2025.
Namibia expects the first oil production from Venus, estimated to contain around 5.1 billion barrels of oil, to occur between 2029 and 2030.
