Kavango drilling confirms ‘working petroleum system’
Reconnaissance Energy Africa and the energy ministry yesterday jointly announced it has found oil and gas indicators and shows over the first three wells of its drilling programme in Kavango.
This“providesclearevidenceof aworkingconventionalpetroleum system in the Kavango Basin”, the company and the ministry said. ReconAfrica, a subsidiary of Canadian-based Reconnaissance Energy, was issued with a Petroleum Exploration Licence (No 73) to undertake exploration activities in the north-eastern parts of Namibia. “The well sample log of the 6-2 provides over 200 metres of oil and natural gas indicators/ shows over three discrete intervals in a stacked sequence of reservoir and source rock,” the statement read. “Extraction ofoilfromthese samples and subsequent fingerprinting for key characteristics of the liquids supports an active petroleum system with multiple source intervals.”
This second well is designed to evaluate the petroleum systems discovered in the first well (6-2) in an area of maximum thickness.
Dan Jarvie, petroleum systems chemist and member of ReconAfrica’s advisory board, stated: “These shows are indicative of migrated, thermogenic petroleum and occur over three different intervals in the 6-2 test well. The intervals penetrated include highly porous, permeable sediments and marine source rocks as predicted, as well as extensive marine carbonate lithofacies. Mud gas results indicate a high BTU gas with the presence of light oil in numerous cutting samples. Based on these initial results, the components and processes for a working petroleum system are all present.”
Energy minister Tom Alweendo said the confirmation of the energy resource was a significant development for the country’s onshore exploration efforts.
“The positive results of this well have provided us with the critical information required to unlock the country’s petroleum prospectivity and is the first step in the process of locating significant accumulations; we can now confidently confirm Namibia is endowed with an active onshore petroleum basin,” he said.