Namibia, the next Eldorado of African oil?, questioned the Heidi News website in December 2019, which took up a paper from Financial News Media. However, the latest events confirm the full potential of this “energy hotspot”according to the established formula, until now the least explored in Africa.
TotalEnergies thus announced on February 24, 2022 a “significant discovery of light oil and associated gas” in its concession in the offshore Orange Basin, off the coast of Namibia. This announcement follows that of Shell last January which also announced an important discovery on the same oil field. The first estimates of the Dutch company put forward a potential of 300 million barrels on this well.
Namibia is therefore taking its place among the African producing countries, alongside Nigeria, Libya, Angola, etc. First of all, there is the exploitation of the Kavango basin, in the north of Namibia, between Angola and Botswana. The first exploratory drillings are in progress and they are promising. The basement would contain 120 billion barrels of oil according to estimates. This would make it one of the largest deposits discovered in the world in recent years.
Located not far from the famous Okanvango delta, a refuge for dozens of animal species, the project has environmental NGOs jumping for the threat that oil exploitation poses to animal life. ReconAfrica, the Canadian group conducting the research, says the concessions are far from animal reserves, which are themselves protected by prohibited buffer zones ten or twenty kilometers wide depending on the location.
The other potential jackpot is at sea. The Orange Basin owes its name to the Orange River, the last hundred kilometers of which and its mouth mark the border between Namibia and South Africa. Offshore, about 300 kilometers from the coast, we are talking here about deep offshore or even ultra-deep. Indeed, to reach the jackpot, you have to drill under 3,000 meters of water as in block 2913 B granted to Total. The technological mastery of the hydrocarbon majors now makes it possible to reach these depths.
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“This discovery off the coast of Namibia and the first very promising results prove the potential of the Orange Basin, in which TotalEnergies occupies an important position in both Namibia and South Africa”said Kevin McLachlan, director of exploration for TotalEnergies.
According to the Reuters agency, there would be a potential of one billion barrels on the drilling responding to the name of Venus-1X. The drilling, announces the French oil company, has “crossed a good quality lower Cretaceous reservoir and encountered about 84 meters of light oil”. It is now necessary to check whether this presence of hydrocarbon is exploitable.
Quite paradoxically, these discoveries come at a time when countries want to turn away from hydrocarbons to green their carbon footprint. The oil companies are also moving towards other energies. In this context, Namibia will perhaps not derive all the profit it could have hoped for from its incredible oil reserves.