Saipem rig finds more light oil & gas-condensate offshore Namibia

Portuguese oil and gas company Galp has struck light oil and gas-condensate in the first well within its second exploration and appraisal program in the Orange Basin, where oil discoveries were made during the first campaign within license PEL 83 off the coast of Namibia, close to discoveries made by Shell and TotalEnergies. 

Saipem’s Santorini drillship spud the Mopane 1-A appraisal well (well #3) on October 23, 2024. The well is located in blocks 2813A and 2814B within the heart of Namibia’s Orange Basin, said to be emerging as one of the world’s most prospective oil and gas regions.

This is the first of up to four wells that are part of a campaign potentially consisting of two exploration wells and two appraisal wells. In an update on Friday, November 29, Galp confirmed that it had drilled, cored, and logged the Mopane-1A appraisal well in PEL83.

According to the company, the well encountered light oil and gas-condensate in high quality reservoir-bearing sands. The Portuguese player underlines that this once again indicates good porosities, high permeabilities, and high pressures, as well as low oil viscosity characteristics with minimum CO2 and no H2S concentrations.

Therefore, Galp concludes that this appraisal well confirms the extension and quality of AVO-1, together with the Mopane-1X (well #1) and Mopane-2X (well #2) findings.

As a result, the firm (80% stake, operator), alongside its partners NAMCOR and Custos with 10% interest each, will continue to analyze and integrate all newly acquired data while progressing the upcoming activities.

These activities entail exploration and appraisal wells and a high-resolution proprietary 3D seismic campaign, which is set to start in December 2024.

The PEL 83 license is located immediately north of Shell’s PEL 39 where the basin opening discoveries at Graff-1, La Rona-1, and Jonker-1 were drilled, and close to TotalEnergies’ multi-billion-barrel Venus-1 oil discovery on PEL 56.

The interest in Namibia’s Orange Basin keeps growing, as confirmed by recent movements in the oil and gas industry. In line with this, Africa Oil Corp. augmented its ownership interest in Impact Oil & Gas, securing a larger stake in the block with the Venus oil discovery.

A month after TotalEnergies kicked off exploration activities on Block 2913B by starting to drill a 1 billion barrel prospect at Tamboti-1X to the north of the giant Venus accumulation, QatarEnergy made arrangements with the French player to get additional stakes in two blocks in the basin.