Petroleum Africa
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Friday, April 18, 2014
The government of Namibia is thinking of going back to licensing rounds as opposed to its current open licensing system. Petroleum Commissioner Immanuel Mulunga said that reverting back to auctioning off the licenses would give the government better terms.
“We can get better terms because it will be an auction,” Mulunga said in an interview on Bloomberg. “We should do it. We have enough licenses and we need to focus on those ones to carry out the work.”
The country has had an open licensing system since 1998 following its last bid round that failed to attract investors.
Nowadays the country has a host of companies big and small investing in exploration, even though the latest round of drilling has not been commercially successful. The last big success Nambia saw was the Kudu gas field, which has yet to be developed.
More recent exploration has been undertaken by firms such as Chariot Oil & Gas and HRT. The next round of drilling will be launched by Repsol and Tower Resources; their first well, the Welwitschia-1 should spud any day.
“That’s barely scratching the surface considering the size of the area,” said Mulunga, commenting on the exploration wells. “We expect the smaller companies we have licensed to bring in the bigger players.”
The amount of 3D seismic surveys conducted offshore Namibia suggests the next two years will be “critical” for the exploration industry, he said.
“There is going to be another bigger player coming into Namibia before year end, but we want companies shooting 3D seismic to work toward drilling,” said Mulunga. “The more exploration wells are drilled, the better the chances for a discovery.”
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