First local exploration licence

GOVERNMENT has granted an offshore exploration licence to the National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia (Namcor), the first time a Namibian firm has been given such a licence.

Namcor, a State-owned enterprise, will look for oil and gas in Licence Blocks 2011B and 2111A of the Ondjou Block, some 100 kilometres west of Walvis Bay in the Atlantic Ocean. The exploration area covers 10 000 square kilometres.Foreign companies have previously drilled for oil and gas in that area.”Results from those wells indicate evidence of gas and oil reserves between 1,6 billion barrels of oil or about 2,5 trillion cubic feet of gas,” Namcor’s Managing Director Sam Beukes said yesterday after receiving the licence certificate.”Namcor will do a lot of desktop studies and preparation for the actual drilling and further development, for which we intend to attract investors.Drilling will be done by other companies who will apply by tender under an open bidding system,” Beukes said.The licence is granted for four years, with a possible extension of another two years.Namcor has own reserves of approximately N$180 million for the project.Mines and Energy Minister Erkki Nghimtina said Namcor would be treated the same as the other nine companies that already hold oil and gas exploration licences.”This includes payment of the annual licence fees of N$600 000,” Nghimtina said.”I sincerely hope that Namcor will find oil for Namibia and soon,” the Minister added.Obeth Kandjoze, Exploration Manager at Namcor, said the parastatal was aware that it did not have the financial and technical capability to fully develop oil and gas fields to the production stage.”That is why we will do the preparatory work in order to look for equity partners in order to share the risks.”The exploration area covers 10 000 square kilometres.Foreign companies have previously drilled for oil and gas in that area.”Results from those wells indicate evidence of gas and oil reserves between 1,6 billion barrels of oil or about 2,5 trillion cubic feet of gas,” Namcor’s Managing Director Sam Beukes said yesterday after receiving the licence certificate.”Namcor will do a lot of desktop studies and preparation for the actual drilling and further development, for which we intend to attract investors.Drilling will be done by other companies who will apply by tender under an open bidding system,” Beukes said.The licence is granted for four years, with a possible extension of another two years.Namcor has own reserves of approximately N$180 million for the project.Mines and Energy Minister Erkki Nghimtina said Namcor would be treated the same as the other nine companies that already hold oil and gas exploration licences.”This includes payment of the annual licence fees of N$600 000,” Nghimtina said.”I sincerely hope that Namcor will find oil for Namibia and soon,” the Minister added.Obeth Kandjoze, Exploration Manager at Namcor, said the parastatal was aware that it did not have the financial and technical capability to fully develop oil and gas fields to the production stage.”That is why we will do the preparatory work in order to look for equity partners in order to share the risks.”