"Shell has started drilling a critical appraisal well on its multibillion-barrel Jonker discovery offshore Namibia, a probe that is remarkable for how far it lies from the discovery well.
Jonker looks set to be the UK supermajor’s first development in the Orange basin, government officials remarked recently, because its viability is deemed to be better than Graff, the company’s debut discovery in Namibia, largely due to its less challenging reservoir characteristics. Jonker is located just across the block boundary from TotalEnergies’ huge Venus discovery, just to the west, and is thought to host the same prolific oil and gas pay.
Extraordinarily, according to data from marine intelligence provider VesselsValue, the Jonker-1A appraisal well is being drilled more than 22 kilometres northwest of Jonker-1 probe, which Upstream reported in February this year had made a major discovery.
As one source familiar with this Orange basin play remarked: “Everything in Namibia is just massive!” The distance between these wells gives a clear indication of the huge areal extent of Jonker and would suggest that Shell wants to move fast to determine the discovery’s maximum extent and push ahead with a probable development in more than 2000 metres of water.
Jonker is currently estimated to hold about 2.5 billion barrels of oil in-place, according to Edinburgh-based consultancy Wood Mackenzie, which was commissioned by Namcor, Namibia’s state oil company, to piece together a resource assessment of the country’s Orange basin discoveries."
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