Qatar Wants to Speed Up Namibia Oil Development
- October 11, 2022
- Posted by: Quatro Strategies
- Category: Energy
Qatar’s Energy Minister and the head of state owned QatarEnergy Al-Kaabi said on Monday that the company wants to accelerate the development of two oil wells it discovered off the coast of Namibia with joint venture partners earlier this year. Al-Kaabi said he expects drilling work to start in 2023 to get a better understanding of deliverability and capacity, but did not indicate when the two sites will be brought into production.
QatarEnergy has a 30% interest in the Venus X1 well, while the field’s operator TotalEnergies has 40%, Impact Oil and Gas owns 20% and Namibia’s state-owned NAMCOR has 10%. In the Graff-1 well, Shell and QatarEnergy each hold a 45% stake, while NAMCOR owns the remaining 10%.
The recent discoveries could make Namibia another major oil producer along Africa’s Atlantic Coast like its neighbor and OPEC member Angola.
While the companies have not revealed the quantities found at the wells, Namibia’s energy minister Alweendo said discoveries are likely in billions of barrels.
“We are trying to expedite that as fast as possible to ensure we can get the development finalized,” Al-Kaabi said during his visit to Namibia.
“These development always take years to develop, it’s not something that can be done very fast and this is deep offshore development, so it has its complications.” he added.
Alweendo said during an oil conference last month in Dakar that the joint venture partners could start production in four years.
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