Oil companies to double down on Namibian exploration
Chevron, ExxonMobil, Galp Energia and more international oil companies shared plans to double down on exploration in Namibia while ensuring local participation.
This was shared at the Namibian International Energy Conference in Windhoek on Wednesday.
Having made Namibia’s first hydrocarbon discovery more than 50 years ago, Chevron announced plans to drill an exploration well on Petroleum Exploration License (PEL) 90 this December after fasttracking its 3D seismic acquisition campaign.
“We entered the exploration license on PEL 90 in October 2022. By Q1 2023, we completed our 3D seismic acquisition, which is a record speed in Namibia. We are planning to drill our first exploration well this year, so from license execution to drilling a well, the timeline is two years,” said Channa Kurukulasuriya, country manager for Namibia and Suriname, Chevron International Exploration and Production.
ExxonMobil also expressed a commitment to expanding activitiesinNamibiaandreplicating the success of its model in Guyana – another frontier exploration hotspot – through early-stage engagement and collaboration with national regulators and ministries.
“In Guyana, we have spent US$1.2 billion with local suppliers and we have over 1 500 qualified Guyanese suppliers and over 6 000 Guyanese workers contributing to these developments. That is the vision we seek to emulate in Namibia,” said Richard Barke, director of South Atlantic Exploration, ExxonMobil Upstream.
“Oil and gas will be a critical part of the global energy mix for years to come. We need to keep exploring,” he added.
“With each discovery, the reserves of the deposits that are being shown are getting better and better. Looking at the data at our disposal, this is just the beginning,” said Ebson Uanguta, interim managing director of the National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia (Namcor).
“We see these oil discoveries having a tremendous impact on GDP growth – the size of the economy is likely to triple.”
Meanwhile, Portuguese company Galp Energia, having recently concluded the first phase of its Mopane exploration campaign that yielded two light oil discoveries, weighed in on the potential impact of recent discoveries on local job creation and skill development.
“In the [exploration campaign] we just finished, we had 56 Namibian companies operating with us. 15% of our workforce were Namibians and 25% of the total group were females. The impact we can bring is to help entrepreneurs create solutions and activities that will be utilised by the industry,” said Adriano Bastos, head of Upstream Special Projects for Galp.
“There are three main partnerships key to [fast-tracking production] – partnership on a technical basis with co-owners, Namcor and service providers to put technical acumen to work,” said James Parr, vice president of New Ventures for Woodside Energy.
“The second is partnership with the government, who sets the stage for us to flourish, and the third is with local communities as resource owners have to be part of this in order for business to flourish.”