General Thoughts, page-44

Update..."The oil column is very big".

TotalEnergies days away from critical Namibia well test as Pouyanne highlights 'very big' oil zone

"TotalEnergies is days away from carrying out the first production test on its blockbusting Venus oil discovery offshore Namibia, amid hints that the thickness of hydrocarbon pay zones may be bigger than revealed originally.

Venus has been touted as one of the world’s biggest offshore discoveries of recent years...

TotalEnergies now has two rigs on location off the coast of southern Namibia, one of which, Odfjell’s Deepsea Mira semi-submersible, will carry out a drill stem test (DST) on the Venus-1 discovery well.

The second rig, Vantage's Tungsten Explorer drillship, is drilling ahead on an exploration probe on the Nara prospect, which could be a westerly extension of Venus, having recently completed the Venus-1A appraisal well.

Deepsea Mira arrived at the Venus-1X discovery well site in Block 2913B in late June and is now within days of starting the DST on this prolific discovery in the Orange basin. Patrick Pouyanne, TotalEnergies chief executive, told analysts yesterday that results from the well test should be available in early September...

Pouyanne - who has always urged caution about over-hyping the scale of Venus - seemed to hint to analysts that the pay zones intercepted so far are promising and, perhaps, better than originally announced. "The oil column is very big," he said, shortly after stressing that results from the appraisal well were "very positive."

There are now suggestions that the results from TotalEnergies recently completed Venus-1A appraisal well - an impressive 13 kilometres north of the discovery well - may have inspired the chief executive's choice of words. TotalEnergies also holds acreage in South Africa's part of the Orange baisn and has provisional plans to drill there next year.

However, Pouyanne told analysts that: "My focus at the moment is Namibia. My priority is to see Namibia come through."