Shell is considering among three prospects for a deep-water wildcat off Namibia, which is set to spud late next year at the earliest. The multi National Company will soon turn its focus to the rig market as it assesses available and suitable tonnage for the exploration well, which will be on
its operated PEL 39 block in the Orange basin, near the maritime boundary with South Africa. “We are looking to drill a well late next year or early 2021,” Colette Hirstius, vice president exploration, Middle East & Africa at Shell Upstream, said at the Africa Oil Week conference in Cape Town on Tuesday. “Namibia is one of the places where the geology is very interesting. We recently acquired seismic data and are continuing to be encouraged by what we see.” Maggy Shino, Petroleum Commissioner at Namibia’s Ministry of Mines & Energy, a panelist at the sideline section of the African Oil Week said Shell will drill a well on a prospect called Graff. Speaking on the sidelines of the conference, Menno de Ruig, Shell’s regional ventures exploration manager for Africa & Middle East, told a media source Upstream, however, that Graff is just one of three prospects being considered for the well. “That is one of the possibilities,” he said. “We haven’t as a joint venture decided which well location we will drill at yet –
we will do that in the first half of next year.” Although the availability of rig is a determinant factor for the earliest . “Namibia is one of the places where the geology is very interesting. We recently acquired seismic data and are continuing to be encouraged by what we see.” drilling of the well in last quarter of next year, De Ruig expresses confident of the company receiving
one soon. “We will soon be (looking to charter a rig),” De Ruig said.
The three prospective wells under consideration apart from Graff is Cullinan and one yet to named prospect. Water depths at the trio of prospects are in and around the 2000-metre mark. “It is deep water but not yet ultra-deep,” De Ruig said. On the technical evaluation work on 7500 square kilometres of new 3Dseismic between the three potential well sites, De Ruig said. “The whole Orange basin is mainly based on the Aptian source rock,which has been proven in the which has been proven in the basin and that is one of the main attractions.“The plays range from Cretaceous
clastics to Early Cretaceous carbonates and many things in between. That is one of the attractionswe are sitting at the mouth of the Orange basin, it is a major delta system with all the plays that you typically can expect in a delta system.” Speaking alongside Shino on Tuesday, Karyna Rodriquez, vice president of geosciences at seismic player TGS, said Namibia shows signs of similar mixed turbiditecontourite systems that have thrown up huge discoveries at the likes of Tullow Oil’s Jubilee field off Ghana, the Sergipe oil discoveries off Brazil and, potentially, ExxonMobil’s giant Liza oil find off Guyana. Shell’s well will be preceded by Total’s Venus-1 wildcat on Block 2913B, also in the Orange basin. The ultra deep water wildcat is targeting a potential resource of 2billion barrels of oil in a Cretaceous fan play. It is set to spud around the middle of the year.