Namibia's offshore is bringing new investment to the country. (Image source: Adobe Stock)

Reflecting the surge in interest in Namibia’s burgeoning oil and gas sector, energy and marine consultancy ABL has announced that it is expanding in-country operations

The new entity will support the local oil and gas market, whilst also developing its offering to support Namibia’s energy transition.

“ABL has been supporting energy and marine projects in Namibia for over a decade,” said Anne Myers, ABL’s country manager for South Africa and Namibia. “Opening an official entity is the natural next step for us, and cements ABL’s commitment and local engagement to support the country in delivering on its energy objectives.”

Namibia is becoming a notable player in the African energy landscape, with a focus on traditional oil and gas development following a string of major offshore discoveries in recent years.

Last week, Galp Energia unveiled the latest discovery in the prolific Orange Basin with its Mopane-3X well.

Namibia also holds ambitious plans to harness its extensive solar and wind energy resources.

Its renewable energy potential is further evident in its promise as a green hydrogen hub for the African continent.

“ABL Namibia adds to our legacy presence in the South African market, based in Cape Town,” said Donald MacMillan, ABL’s regional managing director for Middle East, North and South Africa and India.

“It also represents the next step in our continued expansion as the go-to energy and marine consultant to support safety and sustainability in African energy and oceans. We are very excited to see what will come next from this exciting new venture.”

ABL Namibia will provide the company’s full technical service offering in energy and marine consulting, with a focus on marine technical due diligence, rig inspections and rig moving, marine inspections and surveys, marine warranty survey, and maritime services including ports consulting.

Via the support of its sister company, the renewable energy consultancy OWC, the new entity will also provide a springboard off which to expand the company’s expertise in energy transition and green energy technical advisory, engineering and consulting.

The Namibia operation also complements the group’s presence across the African continent, with offices in Egypt, Republic of Congo, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa, together with a consultancy presence in Algeria and Morocco.

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Bonga North boost for TechnipFMC. (Image source: Adobe Stock)

Nigeria’s Bonga North deepwater project featured prominently as French engineering group TechnipFMC posted a robust set of Q4 2024 results

The company announced back in December that it had secured work on the deepwater project, worth between US$250mn and US$500mn, which is being put together by a local unit of Shell.

The contract — awarded by Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company Limited — will see TechnipFMC supply Subsea 2.0 production systems for the Bonga North development, with work covering the design and manufacture of subsea tree systems, manifolds, jumpers, controls and other services.

But the company also highlighted “higher activity” generally in Africa behind the success of its subsea division during the quarterly period.

It saw the company’s total order backlog reach US$14.4bn, an increase of 9% on a year earlier, with full-year orders worth US$10.4bn. The company said it anticipates a similar order book for 2025.

Doug Pferdehirt, chair and chief executive of TechnipFMC, called it “another year of tremendous success” for the group.

TechnipFMC also reported strong growth across the Middle East region.

“We have secured US$20.2bn of subsea orders over the past two years, and our strong market visibility gives us confidence we will exceed US$10bn of inbound in the current year — delivering on our guidance of US$30bn over the three-years ending 2025,” he said.

Pferdehirt also said that the outlook for further subsea work was positive, a potential nod to the wave of offshore projects in Africa currently in the planning, in areas ranging from Tanzania and Mozambique to Namibia.

“We are also experiencing increased visibility into the pipeline of longer-term opportunities, supported by a growing list of named projects that extends beyond the historical planning horizon, giving us even greater confidence that activity will remain robust through the end of the decade.”

Other frontier provinces have provided opportunity as well, with TechnipFMC landing US$1bn worth of work on the GranMorgu project, the first oil and gas development offshore Suriname.

Shell’s Bonga North development off Nigeria will be a subsea tie-back to the Bonga floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) facility, located in block OML 118, in water depths over 1,000 metres.

It includes drilling, completing and starting up 16 wells (eight production wells and eight water injection wells), modifications to the existing FPSO and the installation of new subsea hardware tied back to the facility.

Bonga North currently has an estimated recoverable resource volume of more than 300 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe) and will reach a peak production of 110,000 barrels of oil a day, with first oil anticipated by the end of the decade.

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Namibia's offshore has become hot property. (Image source: Adobe Stock)

Portuguese energy company Galp Energia has discovered more oil and gas at Namibia’s Mopane field

The company reported this week that it had found significant presence of light oil and gas condensate in a fifth well, Mpane-3X, in Namibia's offshore Mopane field in block PEL83.

Galp's Mopane offshore discovery was initially estimated to hold at least 10bn barrels of oil and gas, opening up Nambia’s Orange Basin as a new frontier with global potential. The Portuguese company is operator of the offshore concession area with an 80% equity stakeholding, alongside its partners NAMCOR, the National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia, and Custos Energy, an independent firm, each with 10%.

The Mopane-3X well was spudded on 2 January and has now been successfully drilled, cored and logged, the group said in a statement. Located 18 km from the first Mopane-1X well, the latest drilling targeted two stacked prospects, AVO-10 & AVO-13, and a deeper sand, in the southeast region of the Mopane complex, at around 1,200 metres water depth.

“Preliminary data confirm light oil and gas-condensate significant columns across AVO-10, and light oil columns on AVO-13 and on the deeper sand, in high-quality sandstones,” it noted. “The reservoirs log measures confirm good porosities, high pressures and high permeabilities. Initial fluid samples show low oil viscosity and minimum CO2 and H2S concentrations. Samples were sent for lab testing.”

Galp Energia also added that Mopane-3X showed higher-than-estimated pressures, and that these preliminary results “unlock further exploration and appraisal opportunities in the southeast region of Mopane.” 

All acquired data will now be integrated into its reservoir model to support the planning of potential further activity. A proprietary 3D seismic acquisition campaign is also on track to be completed in Q1 2025, with the processing of the information to follow thereafter.

Knowledge Katti, chairman and CEO of Custos Energy, added that it marked another safe and successful drilling on what is rapidly becoming a world-class asset.

“These additional discoveries in an entirely new section of Mopane further demonstrate the scale and quality of the complex. An emerging clarity on the multi-phase potential of Mopane is underpinned by this world class asset,” he said. “We are uniquely positioned at the heart of this hydrocarbon province.”

At the end of 2024, Galp Energia announced the findings of the previous well, Mopane-2A, also in PEL83, which found a hydrocarbon column of gas-condensate in AVO-3 with a thin net pay in the reservoir sweet spot. The well also discovered a hydrocarbon column of light oil in a smaller reservoir, AVO-4. 

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Nigeria's independents are flourishing. (Image source: Adobe Stock)

Nigerian independent oil and gas producer Heirs Energies has revealed that its production now surpasses more than 50,000 barrels per day (bpd)

The company — which refers to itself as Africa’s fastest-growing indigenous integrated energy company — has seen its production more than double from 21,000 bpd in just four years.

Hosting its inaugural Petroleum Industry Leadership Dialogue at the Transcorp Hilton Abuja recently, its founder and chairman Tony Elumelu paid tribute to the catalytic role the current government has played in reinvigorating the independent oil and gas sector.

“Production growth, ambitious and sustained, is our shared national mission,” he told delegates at the event.

“As an investor, not just in resources, but in Nigeria’s power production and distribution sectors, all of us need to come together to ensure Nigerians get the benefits of our resources. As we build Africa’s largest integrated energy business, innovation and collaboration are central to our execution.”

Elumelu also set out his company’s vision of transforming Africa’s energy landscape through indigenous leadership, coupled with sustainable development.

Heirs Energies chief executive, Osa Igiehon, illustrated how the company had successfully grown its footprint in Nigeria’s onshore sector.

“Our success at Heirs Energies demonstrates what’s possible in Nigeria’s onshore sector, through our brownfield excellence strategy, robust security measures and genuine community partnership,” he said.

“By tripling our producing wells to over 100, we’ve shown how indigenous operators can efficiently unlock value while ensuring sustainable development of host communities.”

Speaking at the forum, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Sen. Heineken Lokpobiri, announced that Nigeria’s total oil production stood at 1.8 million bpd in January 2025.

The target is to grow this to 2.5 million bpd during 2025, he added.

He also reaffirmed the administration’s ‘drill or drop’ policy to accelerate production growth and further encourage the development of the independent sector.

Other speakers at the event highlighted how a series of Presidential Executive Orders had radically reshaped the operating environment for the independents and catalysed industry growth.

Indigenous oil and gas firms are now responsible for more than 60% of Nigeria’s crude output with the indigenisation programme delivering a “bold new chapter” in the country’s natural resources development, delegates heard.

Ademola Adeyemi-Bero, chief executive at First E&P, another independent, and also OPEC Board of Governors chairman for Nigeria, cited his own company’s achievement of reaching 57,000 bpd from previously untapped fields.

Gbenga Komolafe, chief executive of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) highlighted a surge in active drilling rigs to 38, with projections to reach 50 by March 2025.

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