Niël Terblanché
With its burgeoning oil reserves, Namibia is embarking on a transformative journey, promising not only to reshape its economic landscape but also to solidify its position on the global energy stage.
Namibia has set its sights high on significant offshore oil finds and expects to tap into these vast reserves by 2030.
Petroleum Commissioner, Maggy Shino, at a recent oil conference in Cape Town, South Africa, introduced plans for a Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) platform to facilitate crude oil export.
Since the discoveries, Namibia has garnered considerable attention from global energy magnates. This surge in interest came after Shell and TotalEnergies struck oil off the Namibian coast.
As Shino mentioned, both corporations are conducting appraisal tests to ascertain the commercial viability of these discoveries.
“With the project’s deep-water focus, our inclination is toward an FPSO for efficient crude export,” she said.
Estimates earlier this year accentuated an impressive cache of approximately 11 billion barrels of oil in the newfound offshore fields.
TotalEnergies’ Venus-1X discovery alone accounts for almost half of this volume, reaffirming Namibia’s standing as an exploration epicentre after these groundbreaking deep-water discoveries in the past two years.
The Petroleum Corporation of Namibia (Namcor) expressed its optimistic outlook, forecasting Namibia’s emergence as a top 15 global oil producer by 2035.
Such a trajectory presents the tantalizing prospect of doubling Namibia’s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in a mere decade.
These wells are still undergoing meticulous evaluation, and a conclusive reserve estimate is keenly anticipated later this year.
Notably, the development endeavours for Venus and Jonker are advancing rapidly, adopting a “multi-phased incremental” strategy.
However, development concepts for Shell’s Graff and Le Rona wells remain undisclosed. Early projections point to the immense potential of the Graff and Venus wells, with both poised to nearly double Namibia’s GDP by 2040.
