Chevron Secures Deal Raising Its Operated Stakes in Namibia

Chevron Corp. and the partners in Namibia’s Petroleum Exploration License 82 (PEL82) have signed an agreement transferring operatorship of the offshore asset to the United States oil giant, which is already an operator on the Namibian side of the Orange Basin.

San Ramon, California-based Chevron will be a new co-venturer in PEL82 with an 80 percent interest through Chevron Namibia Exploration Ltd., while the National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia (Namcor) and Custos Energy (Pty) Ltd. will hold non-operating interests of 10 percent each, according to a press release by Custos’ 49 percent owner, Sintana Energy Inc. 

PEL82 contains blocks 2112B and 2212A in the Walvis Basin. Drilling activity so far “confirmed the regional extension and presence of the Barremian-Aptian oil-prone source rock (Kudu shale)”, Sintana said in a press release announcing the Chevron deal.

The Wingat 1 well recovered 39- to 42-degree API oil while the Murombe 1 returned about 20 porosity from Baobab sands, Sintana said.

“The expanding partnership with Chevron in Namibia speaks to the quality of our Namibian portfolio”, Sintana chief executive Robert Bose said in a statement. Chevron and Sintana are already partners in the southwestern African country through the Orange Basin, where Chevron holds an 80 percent operating stake. The basin is shared between Namibia and South Africa.

“The timeliness of our entry and the unmatched nature of our portfolio continue to be demonstrated as Namibia emerges as the world’s next great hydrocarbon province”, Bose added.

Knowledge Katti, chair and chief executive of Custos and a director at Sintana, commented, “We are pleased to announce the continuing expansion of our in-country partnership with Chevron through their entry in PEL 82”.

Meanwhile under the Orange Basin’s PEL90, Chevron applied last November for environmental clearance before Namibia’s Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism to drill up to five exploration and five appraisal wells, according to a news release by Sintana December 21, 2023.

“Since the basin opening Graff and Venus discoveries in February of 2022 by Shell and TotalEnergies respectively, the potential of the Orange Basin in Namibia has continued to emerge”, Sintana said at the time.

“Officials at Namibia’s Ministry of Mines and Energy and NAMCOR, Namibia’s national oil and gas company, estimate that at least 11 billion barrels of light oil-in-place and up to 8.7 trillion cubic feet of gas-in-place have been discovered by Shell and TotalEnergies over the past 20 months”.

The Graff 1 deepwater oil discovery on the Namibian side of the Orange Basin was announced February 4, 2022, by Namcor, a 10 percent co-venturer. Shell PLC is the operator with a 45 percent stake, while QatarEnergy also has 45 percent.

Just days later on February 24, 2022, TotalEnergies unveiled the Venus 1X oil discovery, also on the Namibian side of the basin. TotalEnergies is the operator with a 40 percent stake. QatarEnergy holds 30 percent, Impact Oil and Gas Ltd. 20 percent and Namcor 10 percent.

Last month TotalEnergies said it inked a deal to acquire operatorship of Block 3B/4B, a license adjacent to its operated DWOB block on the South African side of the basin. The agreement with 3B/4B current operator Africa Oil SA Corp. and 3B/4B co-venturer Ricocure (Proprietary) Ltd. farms down a combined 57 percent to the French energy giant and its DWOB partner QatarEnergy.

Block 3B/4B has unrisked prospective oil of 3.1 billion stock tank barrels in the best-estimate scenario and unrisked prospective associated gas of 5.5 trillion cubic feet in the best-estimate scenario, according to a report by Africa Oil March 7, 2023.

To contact the author, email jov.onsat@rigzone.com