Namibias government has granted EnerGulf Resources a 15 per cent interest in offshore Block 1711 following the signing of a new Petroleum Agreement (PA)
The parties to the new PA are the Namibian Ministry of Mines and Energy, Gazania 148 Investments and EnerGulf Namibia — a wholly-owned subsidiary of the EnerGulf Resources.
Block 1711 is situated in the Namibe Basin off the northern coast of Namibia along the international boundary with Angola and covers 8,903 sq km.
The operator of the block will be Shaanxi Yuyang Petroleum Technology Engineering Company Limited.
Gazania 148 Investments, a Chinese investment firm, will have a 75 per cent working interest in the project with EnerGulf Resources sharing 15 per cent working interest. The National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia (NAMCOR) with 10 per cent carried interest to production.
The new PA and related exploration license have an initial term of four years commencing June 2013, which may be renewed by the government twice for additional two-year periods, industry sources said.
The minimum exploration expenditure for the first four years is expected to be US$40mn and the work programme includes acquisition of at least 2,500 sq kms of 3D seismic lines to image some of the existing prospects in the south-western quadrant of Block 1711; processing the seismic data via pre-stack depth migration and acquiring sea-floor piston cores over vents identified with side-scan programme. It also includes procuring drilling vessel and drill one exploration well to the base of the syn rift, not less than a depth of 5500 metres below the sea level.
The first renewal period (two years) and the second renewal period (two years) each have a minimum exploration expenditure of US$40mn and includes the requirement to drill one exploration well to a depth based on the results of the previous wells, sources added.
Jeff Greenblum, CEO, said, “We are delighted to have offshore Block 1711 back on track. It is a world-class project with multiple prospects and three independent plays, being geologically similar to the highly successful fields of the Santos Basin, Brazil, nearby offshore Luanda, Angola and Deepwater Gulf of Mexico. We are confident that the quality of our Namibian asset will be proven through the upcoming work programmes, and we look forward to working with our new co-venturer and operator to achieve significant hydrocarbon discoveries.”
A prospective resource report for Block 1711 was prepared covering four prospects and nine leads. The report — by independent oil and natural gas reservoir engineers Netherland Sewell and Associates Inc. of Dallas, Texas — also includes a mean estimate of 3.1bn barrels of potentially recoverable oil.
