Africa-Press – Namibia. FRENCH oil company TotalEnergies, which made a significant discovery of light oil with associated gas in the Orange Basin offshore southern Namibia, is upbeat about the find, saying it could be a “giant”.
The find in Namibian offshore territory “seems to be a very large” or even “giant” one, based on the results from a single well, TotalEnergies chief executive officer Patrick Pouyanne said in a presentation to investors in New York on Wednesday, Bloomberg reported.
TotalEnergies announced an initial discovery in Namibia in February, weeks after Shell Plc also drilled a successful offshore well in the country’s territory.
The country has high hopes for its nascent petroleum industry, predicting that it could double its gross domestic product by 2040.
Oil finds off Africa have been few and far between in recent years, with exploration activity dropping to a single rig in 2020 as the global novel coronavirus pandemic took hold.
In the months following the initial discoveries in Namibia, executives at TotalEnergies and Shell had sought to damp speculation that they had found significant resources.
Consultant Wood Mackenzie Ltd estimates the Namibian discoveries could contain about 6,5 billion barrels of oil equivalent of recoverable reserves.
Block 2913B in the Orange Basin, where TotalEnergies made the discovery, covers approximately 8 215 square kilometres in deep offshore Namibia.
TotalEnergies is the operator with a 40% working interest, alongside QatarEnergy (30%), Impact Oil and Gas (20%) and the state-owned National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia (Namcor), with a stake of 10%.
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