Namibia Expects First Oil Production By 2030

One of the world’s exploration hotspots, Namibia, expects first oil from the recent major offshore discoveries by 2030, the country’s Petroleum commissioner Maggy Shino told Reuters on Wednesday.

“For the oil project, deep water we are thinking of having an FPSO and then exporting the crude to the market,” the commissioner told Reuters on the sidelines of a petroleum conference in South Africa.

Over the past two years, TotalEnergies and Shell have made large discoveries offshore Namibia.

The supermajors are currently carrying out appraisal drilling and tests to evaluate the volumes of oil in place and their commercial potential, Shino said today.

Shell made in July 2023 a fourth hydrocarbon discovery offshore Namibia.

A month earlier, Zoë Yujnovich, Integrated Gas and Upstream Director at Shell, said on Shell's Capital Markets Day that the supermajor would continue with its exploration efforts after making three discoveries in the Orange Basin offshore Namibia in the past two years. 

“What we're most pleased about in Namibia is that we have so far out of the three exploration wells and the one appraisal well that we have drilled, we have had top-quartile well performance in every single one of our activities in Namibia,” Yujnovich said.

Earlier this year, Shell, QatarEnergy, and Namibia's state oil firm NAMCOR discovered light oil in a deepwater exploration well.

Last year, Shell and its partners made two discoveries in the same Orange basin.

French supermajor TotalEnergies also made a significant discovery of light oil with associated gas on the Venus prospect in the Orange Basin early last year. Venus in Namibia could be a “giant oil and gas discovery,” TotalEnergies said in an investor presentation in September 2022.

The massive deepwater discoveries offshore the African country, Shell’s Graff and TotalEnergies’ Venus, could be transformational for Namibia, the southern neighbor of OPEC member Angola, energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie has said.  

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

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