By Wendell Roelf
CAPE TOWN (Reuters) -Namibia received a boost on Thursday when Rhino Resources discovered “high quality” light oil in its latest well and U.S. oil producer Chevron said it was considering a new drilling campaign in either 2026 or 2027.
A global exploration hotspot, the southern African nation is aiming to produce its first oil by the turn of the decade following a string of recent finds by Shell, TotalEnergies and Galp Energia.
“The results … have proven the existence of a high quality light oil bearing reservoir, with no observed water contact,” Travis Smithard, CEO of Rhino Resources said in a statement.
African energy explorer Rhino Resources found the light oil in its second successful exploration well, Capricornus 1-X, that was drilled in the prolific Orange Basin off Namibia’s coast.
The Cape Town-headquartered company is the operator of Petroleum Exploration License 85 in partnership with Azule Energy, a BP and Eni joint venture, as well as national oil company Namcor and Korres Investments.
The well found 38 metres of net pay with the reservoir showing good petrophysical properties and no observed water contact, Rhino Resources said.
The well, which successfully completed a production test across the light oil-bearing reservoir, will be temporarily plugged and abandoned, it said of the latest exploration success in one of the world’s hottest exploration frontiers.
Rhino Resources and partners will consider post drilling analysis to determine its strategy across the block, the company said after its Sagittarius 1-X well drilled in February also intersected a hydrocarbon reservoir.
French oil major TotalEnergies expects to take a final investment decision on its Venus discovery in the Orange Basin next year, a project that will see a moored floating production storage and offloading vessel (FPSO) likely producing the country’s first oil amid high gas-to-oil challenges.
ExxonMobil was also undertaking detailed studies on vast acreages offshore Namibia to identify new drilling targets, the country’s petroleum commissioner told a Namibian energy conference in capital Windhoek.
“What we are saying is that with the exploration, with the work that has happened since the discoveries that we have made, we have barely started to scratch the surface,” commissioner Maggy Shino told delegates on Wednesday.
(Reporting by Wendell RoelfEditing by Bernadette Baum, Louise Heavens and David Evans)
