Reports continue to come in from the Namibia Orange Basin drilling campaigns of Shell, TotalEnergies and Galp, lighting up this enormous Cretaceous delta basin for future production potential. Shell are defending large recoverable volumes for Graff, Jonker and Lesedi even though the Namibian government recently suggested that volumes are not as large as initially foreseen. Meanwhile, TotalEnergies have announced a discovery at Mangetti 1X, northwest of Venus.
Spudding in November 2023, Galp have announced an oil discovery at Mopane 1X in January 2024, on their PEL83 licence. This large licence, west of the Kudu gas field, appears to hold both the Late Cretaceous Cenomanian – Turonian (CT) play seen at Graff, and the Lower Cretaceous Albo-Aptian play seen at Venus. A major detachment at Cenomanian level appears to underlie high-energy clastics, forming combination stratigraphic/structural traps in the CT. Further large build-ups at the base Cretaceous show strong similarities to the basin floor fan play in the Albian, with Aptian source. Galp have since announced major light oil columns at two depths, suggesting perhaps both plays are active.
What could become more significant, is the reference only to light oil, and high-quality reservoir at AVO 2 (the deeper oil leg). If reservoir quality is good here – there are documented references to permeability and chlorite issues at Venus and Jonker – this new discovery at Mopane could be pointing to a more prolific sweetspot in the basin, which in turn draws the explorer’s eyes to the entire northern third of the Orange Basin depocentre. Most recently TotalEnergies have announced a discovery at Mangetti 1X, another test of the northern edge of this core oil play (in PEL56).
Given the immense extent of the Orange basin, with major oil discoveries in the central and northern areas, the southern third of the basin will soon come into focus. TotalEnergies, with partners AOC, Eco, Qatar energy, Ricocure, Sezigyn and others, have a 3 to 5 well wildcat programme planned across their impressive acreage portfolio from the Namibia / RSA border to the existing discoveries at Brulpadda in South Africa. The main focus will be large Orange Basin Cretaceous targets in Blocks 3B/4B, Deep Western Orange Basin, and SW Deepwater Orange Basin.
Mopane 1X was drilled by the Hercules drillship in 1,903 m, with a TD of approximately 5,000m. Galp will drill ahead with Mopane 2X nearby, before running DST tests on one or both wells. Namcor partners Galp on PEL83, along with local firm Custos (owned in part by Sintana Energy).
