“We’re looking at 11 billion barrels of reserves (oil in place),” he said, stressing: “These are the most conservative estimates.” I'd like to hear what they really think then.
11 billion barrels of oil found in Namibia’s red-hot Orange basin, but ‘surface only scratched’ "Shell and TotalEnergies have discovered at least 11 billion barrels of light oil and up to 8.7 trillion cubic feet of gas in Namibia’s prolific Orange basin over the last 18 months, according to top petroleum officials in the country.
These estimates are also based on only a handful of completed exploration and appraisal wells, a point stressed at a key upstream event in Windhoek last week by Maggy Shino, Petroleum Commissioner at Namibia’s Ministry of Mines & Energy, who said: “We have only begun to scratch the surface of the Orange basin.”
Since making the Graff discovery in February 2022, Shell has made three additional oil finds in its two Namibian blocks. In the same month of 2022, TotalEnergies discovered oil at the Venus prospect and is currently carrying out appraisal drilling while also hunting down a potential extension of what could be a huge ultra-deepwater discovery.
Shiwana Ndeunyema, Namcor’s acting managing director, outlined the sheer scale of the discoveries to date, which in the past 10 years have only been matched by Guyana. “We’re looking at 11 billion barrels of reserves (oil in place),” he said, stressing: “These are the most conservative estimates.”
Ndeunyema said that of these new discoveries, Venus is by far the largest, holding 5.1 billion barrels of in-place crude oil. Shell’s recent Jonker find — an easterly extension of the Venus play — holds about 2.5 billion barrels of oil in-place resource, according to WoodMac estimates."
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