No problem...‘Game over’: TotalEnergies chief says recent...

No problem...

‘Game over’: TotalEnergies chief says recent Namibia oil find is not commercial

"TotalEnergies chief executive Patrick Pouyanne has written off the possibility of developing the company’s recent Tamboti-1X oil discovery offshore Namibia, a view described as possibly premature by exploration sources contacted by Upstream. This ultra-deepwater probe was drilled by the semi-submersible rig Deepsea Mira at a location north of the French player’s huge Venus discovery — which is under development — and close to its earlier Mangetti discovery. Before drilling, Pouyanne indicated the well was targeting a potential 1 billion-barrel resource, with Upstream reporting the well was tested in late January.

Speaking to analysts on Wednesday, Pouyanne dismissed out-of-hand that Tamboti could be a commercial discovery, saying the well results were “not good” and that it “cannot” be tied back to a planned floating production, storage and offloading vessel on Venus. “It’s game over on Tamboti. There is no commerciality, to be clear. We cannot think to connect Tamboti to Venus,” he said at the company’s fourth-quarter results and 2025 outlook call. Nicolas Terraz, the supermajor’s upstream head, confirmed Tamboti-1X hit oil and a test was carried out. However, he said while the well did flow, its permeability “was lower than at Venus” where it ranges between 2 and 4 milliDarcies (mD). Pouyanne pointed out that the permeability numbers for Tamboti are closer to those “written off by some of our colleagues,” a reference to Shell’s nearby discoveries, including Jonker, whose reservoir permeability is about 0.7 mD. Pouyanne said his exploration team knew about the permeability risk before drilling Tamboti because results from a Venus appraisal well in this area also showed signs of reservoir “degradation.” “We wanted to drill it because it was a sizable prospect, but the petrophysics are poor.”

Privately-owned Impact Oil & Gas, one of TotalEnergies’ partners, said Tamboti-1X was drilled to a total measured depth of 6450 metres in block 2913B, about 12 kilometres northeast of the Mangetti-1X discovery well and 25 kilometres north-northwest of the Venus-2A appraisal well. Impact said the probe hit “black oil” in 85 metres of net reservoir comprising “lower quality Upper Cretaceous sandstones belonging to the Mangetti fan system.” The company said a drill stem test was carried out – Upstream was told it flowed below 1000 barrels per day, with data from logs, cores and the DST currently being analysed. Chief executive Siraj Ahmed said: “…with further analysis of the Tamboti-1X results underway, the outcome of this well, within the northern region of block 2913B, highlights the potential of Namibia’s deep offshore play.”

Partly countering TotalEnergies’ narrative, an informed exploration source said Tamboti-1X “wasn’t a bad well — it contains plenty of oil,” adding that the “Mangetti-Tamboti prospect still appears to contain significant volumes.” Another knowledgeable source said that although Tamboti is “not as straightforward as Venus, there’s still work being carried out on it.” Well watchers argued that fracking and, maybe, horizontal drilling could help boost flow rates. “There’s no guarantee… it is commercial,” said one source about Tamboti, but suggested that it is perhaps not yet “game over” for the discovery.

The supermajor’s boss said TotalEnergies now knows the northern and western limits of good quality reservoirs in its blocks 2913B and 2912, adding that he was not surprised the Chevron’s recent Kapana-1X probe in a block directly north of Tamboti was unsuccessful. “We are not surprised the neighbour in the north did not make any discovery. It’s quite consistent.” Chevron chief executive Mike Wirth told analysts last week that despite Kapana’s failure: “We continue to be interested; we’re very pleased with the information we learned; it helps us understand the geological history of that part of the basin — how the depositional structures and geology evolved.” He was speaking during the company’s fourth-quarter call and also highlighted that Chevron also holds a fronter block in Namibia's Walvis basin."