Oil Field Africa Review | Pancontinental PEL 87 Operational Licence Extends By Another Year, Namibia

Pancontinental Energy has announced that its wholly owned subsidiary Pancontinental Orange Pty Ltd has received a fully signed document extending the current Initial Exploration Period of offshore Namibian Petroleum Exploration Licence 87 (PEL 87) by one year, until 23 January 2023.

Following the Initial Exploration Period, there are provisions in the PEL 87 Petroleum Agreement for three additional Periods, each of two years, to undertake additional exploration work including drilling.

The Deed relating to the extension has been signed by The Honourable Tom Alweendo, the Minister of Mines and Energy of Namibia as well as local PEL 87 Joint Venture partners Custos Investments and the national oil company of Namibia, Namcor.

Earlier this year in the region of PEL 87, super-majors Shell and TotalEnergies and their partners announced separate major light oil discoveries in the Graff-1 and the Venus-1X wells.

On-trend in PEL 87, Pancontinental has mapped the very large Saturn turbidite complex. Pancontinental operates PEL 87 with a 75% interest. Saturn is at the same stratigraphic level and bears other significant similarities to Venus.

PEL 87 is a very large exploration area of approximately 10,970 sq km (269,345 acres) in water depths of 500m to 3,000m.

“We thank the Honourable Minister Alweendo for granting the one-year extension to the Initial Exploration Period of PEL 87”.

“While Covid has impacted exploration worldwide, the recent very large world-scale discoveries by Total and Shell have really put Namibia on the map as a potential major new world oil province, and things are moving quickly”.

“The extension means that we have more time to properly assess these major oil discoveries and to apply the knowledge to PEL 87”.

“As Operator, Pancontinental will continue to move PEL 87 activities ahead alongside our joint venture partners Custos and Namcor”.

“Pancontinental has successfully positioned itself with a significant 75% interest in a very large licence area in this prime exploration hotspot, together with the very large Saturn turbidite complex that we have already mapped at the same level as Total’s Venus oil discovery,” Pancontinental’s Technical Director Mr Barry Rushworth stated.