WINDHOEK, JAN 26 – Further work must be done to come up with concrete data that will establish whether recent discoveries regarding oil and gas are commercial. Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME) senior public relations officer Andreas Simon on Wednesday told Namibia Daily News that “Our position currently, is that no commercial discovery has been made. We are not sitting with data that can confirm that. The only update we have is that there is a presence of an active petroleum system.”
This comes after Reuters reported that Shell had made a significant oil and gas discovery at the Graff-1 well which Shell began drilling last month.
“The well results have so far shown at least two reservoirs containing what one of the sources described as a significant amount of oil and gas. According to a second source, the drilling results have shown one layer at least 60 metres deep of hydrocarbons, holding an estimated 250 to 300 million barrels of oil and gas equivalent,” said Reuters.
According to Simon, Shell started exploring for oil offshore last year. Regarding reports circulating in the media of the alleged/speculated discovery of oil in Namibia he said: “The Ministry would like to inform your office that operations for the Graff-1 well are still ongoing. It is the objective of the project and of Government, (through Namcor), to safely execute the operations and collect quality data, to enable a thorough assessment of the prospect potential.”
He stated that the only update was that there was a presence of an active petroleum system which required further analysis to determine its viability.
“Our position currently, is that no commercial discovery has been made. We are not sitting with data that can confirm that. The only update we have is that there is a presence of an active petroleum system. However, further work needs to be conducted to determine the viability of that petroleum system. We are interested to know in the end, whether the findings that should be presented to Namcor and to the line Ministry whether they are indeed commercially viable or not.”
The off-shore drilling is planned to end during the course of the coming week, said Simon adding that “perhaps then, we will have more information for the public. As soon as all the data have been analysed, the Ministry will issue a full results announcement.”
Shell holds a 45% stake in the offshore Petroleum Exploration License 39 (PEL 39) with a 45% interest held by Qatar Petroleum and a 10% held by the National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia (NAMCOR). – musa@namibiadailynews.info
