By Sergio Goncalves
LISBON (Reuters) – Portuguese oil firm Galp Energia stated on Sunday it had concluded the primary section of exploration within the Mopane subject off the coast of Namibia and estimated it may have a minimum of 10 billion barrels of oil.
Galp stated it carried out testing operations on the Mopane-1X properly in January and the Mopane-2X properly in March. In each wells, that are 8 kilometres aside, it stated “important mild oil columns have been found in high-quality reservoir sands”.
The Mopane subject is positioned within the Orange Basin, alongside the coast of the southern African nation, the place Shell and France’s TotalEnergies have made a number of oil and gasoline discoveries.
Galp stated flows achieved in the course of the assessments reached the utmost allowed restrict of 14 thousand barrels per day, probably positioning Mopane as an necessary industrial discovery.
“Within the Mopane complicated alone, and earlier than drilling extra exploration and appraisal wells, hydrocarbon in-place estimates are 10 billion barrels of oil equal, or increased”, Galp stated.
Galp holds an 80% stake in Petroleum Exploration Licence 83 (PEL 83), which covers an space of virtually 10,000 sq. kilometres within the Orange Basin.
Namibia may develop into a brand new income for Galp, which presently has sturdy investments off the coast of Brazil and can be current in a pure gasoline mission in Mozambique’s Rovuma basin.
Galp has beforehand indicated it may launch a course of to draw different traders to its initiatives in Namibia, as they might attain a big scale.
The OPEC+ oil producers group, having misplaced Angola and different gamers lately, is eyeing Namibia for potential membership because it units up what might be Africa’s fourth-largest output by the subsequent decade, an African business official informed Reuters.
(Reporting by Sergio Goncalves; modifying by Christina Fincher)