The Africa Energy Chamber (AEC) has called on the Namibian government to open up investment opportunities that would accelerate deployment of infrastructure and an increase in exploration activities to unlock the full potential of the country’s hydrocarbons sector.
In a media statement issued this wand that the Venus Orange Basin and Graff discoveries earlier this year have not only placed Namibia among the world-class oil and gas findings, but also represent important discoveries for the major themselves, namely Shell and TotalEnergies.
‘’The Graff and Venus projects are among the world’s top 20 discoveries of the past ten years in terms of volume with Venus ranking as the world’s second largest project after Russia’s Marshal Zhukov – with 4,500 million barrels of oil equivalent (mmboe) of recoverable reserves – while Graff, with its 2 billion barrels of oil equivalent of reserves, is ranked 16th,” the chamber says.
The discoveries will also rank among the top ten assets for both companies.
AEC further says that the discoveries provide an opportunity for Namibia to further ‘’strengthen its fiscal, tax, regulatory and business policies to ‘’kick start exploration and ensure the country’s 11 billion barrels of oil and 2.2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves are exploited to address energy poverty and to fuel industrialization growth’’.
“Namibia is on the right track to ensure the importance of the Graff and Venus discoveries are fully realized. What remains now is the strengthening of policies and fiscal reforms that will push for the rapid development of these projects. Namibia needs to attract investments to build infrastructure such as refineries, storage, gas-to-power plants and pipelines to ensure the energy security benefits of these discoveries is enjoyed by the local people,” states NJ Ayuk, Executive Chairman of the AEC.
AEC will hold a conference later this year under the theme ‘’Exploring and Investing n Africa’s Energy Future’’ where various representatives from Namibia will feature including the Minister of Mines and Energy, as well as oil and gas companies who will promote investment opportunities across the country’s emerging oil sector.
