"The battle to buy a big part of Galp Energia’s mighty Mopane oil and gas discovery offshore Namibia is hotting up, with all the big beasts of the Western upstream world said to be assessing options. At stake is entry into a discovery that Upstream has been told recently may hold substantially more in-place resources than even the 10 billion barrels of oil equivalent revealed by the operator in April. Adding to the intrigue is speculation that a minority partner in Galp’s sought-after acreage may also be open to offers.
Mopane was discovered in January in Petroleum Exploration Licence 83, located just west of BW Energy’s Kudu gas discovery. An appraisal well was drilled quickly, before Galp returned to Mopane-1X to carry out a production test that flowed at an impressive rate of 14,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. Good news about the reservoir characteristics came thick and fast, with the operator reporting good porosities, high pressures, high permeabilities and large hydrocarbon columns, with fluid samples indicating very low oil viscosity with minimal impurities.
As a result, when Galp said it was open to offloading half of its 80% stake in PEL 83, it lit the touchpaper for what is set to be one of the most competitive farm-in opportunities of recent years. Last month, Bloomberg reported that offers are due to be submitted in mid-June, with ExxonMobil, Shell, TotalEnergies and Equinor among the potential bidders for a discovery valued at about $20 billion. However, in recent weeks, some other serious contenders are believed to have shown their colours, including Chevron, Azule Energy, Woodside Energy — all existing Orange basin players — as well as Brazil’s Petrobras."
"Woodside is also said to be interested, because Galp’s acreage is located directly south of PEL 87 over which the Australian player has still not exercised a farm-in option. Exploration sources spoken to by Upstream said that some companies wanting to visit Galp’s data rooms are unlikely to submit bids because they are more interested in gleaning geological and geophysical information on Mopane that could inform their own exploration initiatives in the Orange basin."
"Galp’s two Mopane probes, 1X and 2X, intercepted three distinct reservoirs, only one of which was tested, with the Lisbon-based player reluctant to say whether the 10 billion boe resource figure applies to all the reservoirs or not. However, Upstream was advised recently by a source with knowledge of the drilling programme that the resource estimate applies only to the main AVO 1 reservoir found at both well locations. The AVO 2 and AVO 3 reservoirs are said to be “independent discoveries that will require further appraisal to establish their size”. AVO 1 is believed to extend “far beyond” the Mopane 1X and 2X locations, with some of Galp’s exploration team understood to be talking about resources of 12 billion boe for this reservoir. The informed source said the operator was, until recently, carrying internal resource estimates for AVO 2 and AVO 3 of at least 1 billion boe each.
“It’s crazy stuff,” remarked the well-watcher, who added that the “most exciting part is Galp clearly has the amplitude variations absolutely nailed on in calibration”. Another exploration source cautioned that Mopane may have more gas than originally thought which could complicate any development and potentially jeopardise plans for a fast-track project. Asked about the PEL 83 farm-out process, a Galp spokesperson declined to comment, while Custos could not be reached for comment. Chevron, Eni, Petrobras, Shell and TotalEnergies also declined to comment. Azule, Equinor, ExxonMobil and Woodside had not responded to Upstream inquiries by the time of publishing."
PCL Price at posting:
2.4¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
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