Chances of discovering oil in Namibia are between 15 to 20%

By Eric Mhunduru

The newly appointed Namcor managing director, Victoria Sibeya, says the chance of finding oil-generating hydrocarbons in Namibia is between 15 and 20 per cent.

She said this during a mines ministry vodcast hosted by the former executive director Penda Ithindi.

Sibeya said if a company drills 10 wells, the chance of discovering oil could be from two wells out of that total.

She further said that initial investment, especially in the Namibian basins, is more costly, between US$100 million and US$120 million, because they are in ultra-deep waters.

“Namibia has done so well in terms of exploration activities and these types of exploration processes can take a company around about one to four years to do. This is because seismic equation alone and also processing of the data can take you up to 18 months and thereafter interpret in the identified area where you can ultimately drill a well.

“These wells in Namibia, because we are a frontier region, it’s really in the tune of US$100 to US$120 million. Considering that the easy oil has already been found worldwide, so we are looking in deep waters.

“Industry standard benchmark in a region like ours, the chance of success of finding hydrocarbon is between 15 to 20 percent. So that means that if you drill 10 wells, at least two of the wells should be discovered and Namibia has done well since 2022,” Sibeya said.

Former mines ministry executive director Penda Ithindi highlighted some foreseeable benefits once the oil discoveries reach extraction and production levels.

“By then, the socio-economic dynamics for the country would have changed for the better. The size of the country’s economy, as measured by GDP, would have near doubled. The revenues that would come from the sector, that would flow to state coffers, would be significant, would be substantial.

“We would have capacity to diversify the economy, because that’s an important aspect that you take away from an industry like oil and gas. So, we diversify the economy so that we create additional and diversified resources of growth, of job creation, of wealth creation,” he said.

Several companies have faced challenges in their oil exploration quests due to the depth of hydrocarbon-bearing rocks, especially in the Orange basin.

The post Chances of discovering oil in Namibia are between 15 to 20% first appeared on Future Media News.

The post Chances of discovering oil in Namibia are between 15 to 20% appeared first on Future Media News.