General Thoughts, page-8836

And there's that Rhino quote again. Apologies for the long posts, but the news flow is on...

Namibia's top oil and gas official ‘very very encouraged’ by latest Orange basin discovery

"Namibia’s top oil and gas official has confirmed that Rhino Resources has another hydrocarbon discovery on its hands in the Orange basin and is upbeat about its promise. Last week, Upstream broke the news that Rhino had hit hydrocarbons with its Capricornus-1X exploration well in Petroleum Exploration Licence (PEL) 85, being told that a drill stem test was set to be carried out. Completed in February, Rhino’s first exploration well in PEL 85 — Sagittarius-1X — also found hydrocarbons. Discussing this drilling campaign on Wednesday, Namibia’s Petroleum Commissioner Maggy Shino said: “Exploration is coming to an end and the results are very, very encouraging.” Upstream understands that drill stem tests were carried out at Capricornus-1X on 20 and 22 April, before Shino spoke at Rich Africa Consultancy’s Namibian International Energy Conference in Windhoek. In Galp Energia’s PEL 83, the petroleum commissioner said that the Mopane discovery has “many layers and complexes.”

She highlighted how the most recent well, Mopane-3X, was targeting one reservoir, but when it was drilled, “it came through with a mighty discovery” in the AVO 10 and AVO 13 plays “and another one that we didn't even know existed.” Shino said the PEL 83 partners are “now working hard to make sure we appraise this field, so that then we can also be able to come back to you with the numbers in terms of what is the commerciality look like, and how are we going to develop it.” In early April, Galp revealed that Mopane holds contingent resources of at least 875 million barrels of oil equivalent, but this number did not include data from the two most recent wells, including Mopane-3X. As for TotalEnergies ongoing Marula-1X exploration well in PEL 56, Shino said nothing. Meanwhile, BW Energy is set to drill two appraisal wells at its Kudu gas field in an effort to beef up resources that currently stand at about 1.3 trillion cubic feet. “We are going to inject additional life into Kudu in quarter three and quarter four of this year. We are going to drill two appraisal wells.” Shino said the two wells will target the K Deep reservoir, with the operator saying one of the prospects is called Kharras. Work on the Kudu gas-to-power project is progressing and is based on subsea wells tied back to a semi-submersible floating production unit which will strip out condensate, leaving the gas to be piped to a power barge moored in Elizabeth Bay.

Discussing Chevron’s plans for PEL 90 in the Orange basin after the failure of its debut exploration well, Kapana-1X earlier this year, Shino said “we are planning to drill another well in 2026.” She also highlighted that the US supermajor is busy analysing a large volume of data acquired in PEL 82 in the Walvis basin “so we can see the sweet spots.” The petroleum commissioner also touched on Shell’s activities in PEL 39 where the supermajor took a write down in January after declaring its multiple discoveries non-commercial. She said Shell’s decision shows that “exploration is a very risky business,” but pointed out that the government is working with the PEL 39 partners to come up with a potential plan to develop the finds. “What we are working on calls for synergies and collaboration between partners,” namechecking Galp, TotalEnergies, Rhino and BW Energy, and also highlighting the need for infrastructure in southern Namibia to support projects that are not viable on a stand-alone basis. “This is a conversation that we are having right now.”

While a lot of attention is currently on the Orange basin, Shino was keen to highlight the onshore exploration efforts in northeast Namibia by the likes of ReconAfrica, Monitor Exploration and Elephant Oil. ReconAfrica is set to drill its second exploration well in PEL 73, while Monitor has just finished acquiring 2D seismic data in PEL 93 leading to the mapping of a number of prospects, said Shino, including “one that has a very beautiful anticline structure that we need to drill.” In PEL 101, Elephant is combining gravimetric and magnetic data to help pinpoint potential drilling targets.

Back offshore, Shino highlighted the potential of Pancontinental Energy’s PEL 87, which straddles the Orange and Luderitz basins and which Woodside Energy recently decided not to enter, but which holds the promising turbidite complex called Saturn within which two prospects have been identified, both with positive hydrocarbon indicators. In the Luderitz basin, she pointed out the promise of PEL 104 where data analysis by Halliburton identified the big Marula prospect where four reservoirs could be tested by a single exploration well. Further north, in the Walvis basin, Shino flagged up the acreage — PELs 97, 98, 99 and 100 — held by Eco Atlantic which the company continues to discuss with potential farminees. The petroleum commissioner was bullish about finding hydrocarbons in the frontier Luderitz, Walvis and Namibe basins. Her optimism stems from regional studies which found that the source rock underpinning the Orange basin’s petroleum system “cuts across the entire Namibian offshore,” while the deepwater fans found in the Orange basin have been mapped in the other offshore plays."