For several years now, the words “oil discovery” and “opportunities” have become part of Namibia’s economic vocabulary.
There is talk of billions of barrels, foreign investment, jobs, local suppliers, new industries, infrastructure, government revenue and Namibia becoming one of Africa’s important oil-producing countries.
The comparisons with Guyana are inevitable.
Guyana was once a relatively small developing economy whose offshore oil discoveries fundamentally altered its economic prospects. Namibia, with its own enormous offshore discoveries, is now being spoken about in similar terms.
But there is a fundamental difference between discovering oil and successfully transforming an oil resource into national prosperity.
Namibia has discovered hydrocarbons.
It has not yet produced commercial oil.
And before the country begins counting the billions that might eventually flow from the seabed, it needs to have a much more serious national conversation about what has actually been discovered, who owns the resources, who will develop them, what government will receive, what Namibians can realistically expect, what could go wrong and how the country intends to prevent an oil boom from becoming another African resource curse.
Most importantly, Namibians need to understand the industry.
At present, there is a strong argument that they do not understand it nearly well enough.
From Kudu to Venus and Graff
Namibia’s petroleum story did not begin with the spectacular discoveries announced in 2022.
Oil and gas exploration along the Namibian coast dates back to the 1960s. The first significant breakthrough came in 1974, when a consortium including Chevron, Regent and SOEKOR discovered the Kudu gas field in the Orange Basin, offshore near Oranjemund.
Subsequent appraisal confirmed a significant gas accumulation, but decades later Namibia has still not produced commercial hydrocarbons from Kudu.
After independence, exploration continued, but success remained elusive.
Companies including Shell, Chevron, Norsk Hydro, Sasol and others explored Namibia’s offshore basins. Later campaigns involving companies such as HRT, Chariot and Repsol generated valuable geological information but failed to produce a commercially viable oil discovery.
That changed dramatically in 2022.
Shell announced the Graff-1X discovery in Petroleum Exploration Licence 39, while TotalEnergies announced the Venus discovery in PEL 56. The discoveries demonstrated that Namibia’s deepwater Orange Basin contained a working petroleum system capable of producing significant quantities of light oil and associated gas.
The geological significance was enormous.
Namibia had effectively moved from being a country with a long history of unsuccessful exploration to a country sitting in one of the world’s most closely watched frontier petroleum provinces.
And the discoveries did not stop there.
Galp subsequently made the Mopane discovery in PEL 83, while Rhino Resources added further excitement with discoveries including Capricornus and Volans.
Wood Mackenzie now describes Namibia as a global exploration hotspot, with major discoveries by Shell, TotalEnergies, Galp and Rhino confirming the high potential of the Orange Basin.
But this is where the distinction between discovery, commerciality and production becomes critical.
Namibia has made discoveries.
It is still working to establish the scale, economics and development requirements of those discoveries.
There is no commercial oil production yet.
That distinction should be repeated relentlessly because public expectations are already running considerably ahead of reality.
Who are the major players?
The most prominent companies are now familiar names.
TotalEnergies
TotalEnergies is arguably the most advanced of the major operators.
Its Venus discovery in PEL 56 is being progressed towards development. The company says Venus has approximately 750 million barrels of oil equivalent in resources, with engineering work advanced and a proposed production plateau of approximately 150 000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.
TotalEnergies has been working with the Namibian authorities towards a potential final investment decision in 2026, with first oil targeted for around 2030.
But even this should not be interpreted as “Namibia will have oil in 2030” as though it were guaranteed.
A final investment decision is itself a critical milestone. It means the commercial, technical, regulatory and financial conditions have been sufficiently aligned to commit enormous amounts of capital.
Until that happens, production remains a target.
TotalEnergies has also significantly strengthened its position through its agreement with Galp to acquire a 40% operated interest in PEL 83, home to the Mopane discovery. The companies have committed to further exploration and appraisal drilling, with Mopane potentially moving towards a final investment decision around 2028.
TotalEnergies has now also expanded into PEL 104, alongside Petrobras, with NAMCOR holding a 10% interest.
Shell
Shell remains one of the central players through PEL 39.
Its licence has seen extensive drilling, including Graff, La Rona, Jonker, Lesedi, Cullinan, Merlin and other wells. Shell itself says ten wells have been drilled in the licence over the past four years.
The significance of Shell’s position is not simply that Graff was an important discovery.
The company is trying to understand whether its collection of discoveries can ultimately be assembled into a commercially viable development.
That is a much more complicated exercise than simply finding oil.
Shell must establish the size and quality of the resources, reservoir characteristics, recoverability, development costs, infrastructure requirements and the economics of producing oil from Namibia’s ultra-deep waters.
Galp
Galp’s importance lies particularly in Mopane.
The Portuguese company drilled a series of exploration and appraisal wells in PEL 83, culminating in the Mopane discoveries. Mopane-3X in early 2025 confirmed light oil and gas condensate in high-quality sandstone reservoirs and expanded the understanding of the complex.
Galp subsequently partnered with TotalEnergies, which is taking operatorship of PEL 83 while Galp retains a 40% interest.
The partnership has committed to further exploration and appraisal drilling, meaning Mopane remains firmly in the development pipeline but is not yet a producing oilfield.
Chevron and Equinor
Chevron is another significant player.
Its PEL 90 acreage in the Orange Basin has attracted considerable attention. The Kapana-1X exploration well drilled in January 2025 did not encounter commercial hydrocarbons, but Chevron is continuing with its exploration programme.
The company plans to drill the Nabba-1X well before the end of 2026.
And this week, the story became even more interesting.
Norway’s Equinor agreed to acquire a 17.4% interest in PEL 90 from a Chevron subsidiary. The transaction would give Equinor, one of the world’s most experienced offshore oil companies, an entry into Namibia’s exploration sector.
The current partnership includes Chevron’s subsidiary, QatarEnergy, Trago Energy and NAMCOR, with Nabba-1X expected to be drilled before year-end.
That is a significant vote of confidence in Namibia’s petroleum potential.
But again, exploration remains exploration.
Rhino Resources and the wider field
Rhino Resources is another company that has emerged as an important player, particularly through discoveries in PEL 85.
The company’s Volans discovery, for example, has progressed to production testing, while further appraisal work has been planned in the Volans and Capricornus areas.
Beyond these companies, QatarEnergy, Petrobras, Impact Oil & Gas, NAMCOR and several smaller exploration companies are involved in various licences.
The common denominator is that Namibia has become a serious exploration destination.
But what does “opportunity” actually mean?
This is where public education becomes essential.
There is a tendency in Namibia to hear “oil industry” and immediately think of jobs.
But the petroleum industry is an extraordinarily specialised business.
The biggest opportunities will not necessarily be created by putting Namibians on offshore drilling rigs.
There are opportunities across engineering, logistics, marine services, environmental management, catering, accommodation, security, transportation, fabrication, construction, financial services, information technology, legal services, accounting, procurement, inspection, maintenance, waste management and professional services.
But these opportunities will not automatically fall into Namibian hands.
They must be deliberately developed.
That requires skills.
It requires companies capable of meeting international standards.
It requires financing.
It requires certification.
It requires procurement systems that allow competent Namibian businesses to participate.
And it requires the government to understand exactly what local content means.
Guyana provides a particularly useful lesson here.
Guyana did not simply wait for oil money to arrive. It developed local-content legislation designed to ensure that Guyanese businesses and workers could participate in the industry.
By 2026, its government reported that approximately 1 200 local businesses were participating in the oil sector and almost 7 000 Guyanese had been trained.
That is the conversation Namibia needs.
Not merely: “How much oil is there?”
But: “What capabilities must Namibians possess before the oil industry reaches full production?”
Do Namibians really understand what is coming?
This may be one of the country’s biggest weaknesses.
Ask ordinary Namibians what the Venus discovery means and many will struggle to explain the difference between an exploration licence, an oil discovery, an appraisal well, a development plan, a final investment decision and actual production.
Ask who owns Namibia’s petroleum resources and how revenues will be distributed, and there is likely to be considerable uncertainty.
Ask what royalties are, what petroleum income tax is, what additional petroleum tax means, how production-sharing arrangements work or what the state’s carried interest means, and the knowledge gap becomes even more obvious.
That gap is dangerous.
When a society is told that it is sitting on billions of barrels of oil, people naturally develop expectations.
They expect jobs.They expect cheaper fuel. They expect better roads. They expect houses. They expect better hospitals. They expect government to become wealthy. They expect poverty to disappear.
They may expect every Namibian household to become richer.
Those expectations can become politically explosive if reality does not match the rhetoric.
The government itself recognises the complexity of the petroleum regime. Namibia’s upstream petroleum sector is governed principally by the Petroleum (Exploration and Production) Act, the Petroleum Taxation Act, related amendments and the Model Petroleum Agreement.
The ministry of industries, mines and energy is responsible for regulating and facilitating the upstream sector and managing issues including resource, environmental and revenue management.
But having legislation on a website is not the same as having an informed population.
Namibia needs an oil-literacy campaign
The government should therefore embark on a nationwide petroleum information and education campaign.
Not another technical conference in Windhoek.
Not another industry workshop attended by the same 30 people.
A genuinely national campaign.
It should go to schools, universities, vocational training centres, churches, traditional authorities, regional councils, local authorities, business associations and communities.
It should use radio in Namibia’s languages. It should use television.
It should use social media.
It should produce simple explanations of complex concepts.
Namibians should be able to understand:
What has actually been discovered?
Where are the discoveries?
Who owns the resources?
Who are the companies?
What does NAMCOR do?
What does government receive?
What are royalties and taxes?
What is local content?
What opportunities exist for Namibian businesses?
What skills will be required?
When could production begin?
What could delay production?
What are the environmental risks?
What happens to the money once government receives it?
And perhaps most importantly:
What happens if the expected oil wealth does not materialise at the scale currently being discussed?
That final question is rarely part of the public conversation.
It should be.
Guyana’s most important lesson is not oil
Guyana is instructive precisely because its experience demonstrates that oil wealth does not automatically translate into broad prosperity.
Guyana has invested heavily in systems designed to govern oil revenues, including its Natural Resource Fund and local-content framework.
Its government has made public education about the fund part of the conversation, including explaining how much money is received, how withdrawals work and what oversight mechanisms exist.
That transparency matters.
Citizens cannot hold the government accountable for money they do not understand.
And they cannot meaningfully participate in an economy whose rules they do not understand.
Namibia should therefore study Guyana not simply as a model of oil production but as a case study in citizenship in an oil economy.
The objective should be to ensure that the average Namibian understands that petroleum is a national resource, but that developing it requires enormous capital, specialised technology, environmental management and careful economic planning.
Oil is not a lottery ticket.
It is an economic asset that can either be transformed into long-term national wealth or squandered through poor governance, unrealistic expectations and weak domestic capacity.
The oil story should belong to Namibians
The danger is that Namibia’s oil story is currently being told predominantly by oil companies, government officials, consultants, investment conferences and specialist publications.
The ordinary Namibian is often a spectator.
That cannot continue.
If the industry is genuinely going to transform the country, Namibians must understand it before the first commercial barrel is lifted.
They need to understand both the promise and the limitations.
They need to know where the jobs are.
They need to know where they are not.
They need to know what businesses can realistically supply.
They need to know what skills their children should acquire.
They need to understand the environmental implications.
They need to know what the government is negotiating.
And they need to know how every dollar earned from their natural resources is accounted for.
The government should not wait until the first oil revenue arrives before beginning this conversation.
By then, it will already be too late.
Namibia has spent decades looking for oil. The country has finally found it in significant quantities.
The next challenge is considerably harder.
Namibia must ensure that its people understand what has been found, how it will be developed and how the wealth can be converted into lasting national prosperity.
The real oil boom should therefore begin not with the first barrel.
It should begin with an informed citizenry.
Because if Namibians do not understand the resource beneath their waters, they will have very little chance of understanding the wealth, power, risks and opportunities that will inevitably accompany it.
