Global Petroleum has acknowledged the announcement made recently by National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia (NAMCOR), Shell Namibia Upstream B.V. and Qatar Energy.

The NAMCOR Announcement states that the Graff-1 deep-water exploration well in the Orange Basin offshore Namibia has made a discovery of light oil in both primary and secondary targets (Graff-1 discovery), and that the Graff-1 deep-water well has proved a working petroleum system for light oil in the Orange Basin, offshore Namibia.

Global believes that the Graff-1 discovery has positive implications for the Company’s PEL 94 licence, which is situated approx. 1,000km north of the Graff-1 discovery:

The company has stated that the Graff-1 discovery clearly has the potential to underpin a new petroleum province offshore Namibia, which Global’s model predicts to extend to PEL 94, further north in the Walvis Basin and it has also demonstrated for the first time in the history of Namibian offshore exploration that valid hydrocarbon-bearing reservoirs with viable traps are present and that potentially commercial volumes of oil are capable of migrating into them. Both Marula – Global’s primary prospect in PEL 94 – and the Graff discovery are stratigraphic traps with late Cretaceous, deep water sandstone reservoirs.

Both the Graff-1 discovery and Global’s prospects and leads in PEL 94 are interpreted by the Company to be sourced with oil from the Barremian-Aptian Kudu Shale (‘Aptian source rock’). This source rock has been proven in the Orange Basin by wells previously drilled there. The Company’s work has demonstrated that the Aptian source rock is likely to be present and charging its prospects and leads in PEL 94 with oil.

A major factor in field development economics are water depths and subsurface drilling depths, which are significantly less in PEL 94 compared to those at Graff-1 and at TotalEnergies’ Venus-1 well, currently being drilled. Global’s internal economic modelling concludes that its two primary prospects, Marula and Welwitschia Deep, would be robust economic projects in the event of successful exploration drilling.
“We would like to congratulate Shell and its partners on the drilling of the successful Graff-1 well. As the first potentially commercial oil discovery offshore Namibia, this is a significant event not only for Shell and its partners, but also for Namibia as a country. We note the apparent similarities between the Graff discovery and the prospectivity in our own licence, which is highly encouraging especially when combined with the strong economics of our prospects,”Peter Hill, Global’s CEO, commented.