Namibia Eyes $50 billion Oil Investments

Standard Bank Group, a leading financial services provider in Africa, sees great potential for investors in Namibia’s bullish hydrocarbons sector. It estimates about $50 billion capital is required to bring online recent oil and gas discoveries in deep water offshore the coast of the Southern African nation. Namibia is currently the hottest play in the world, with mouthwatering deals emerging. In July 2024, Woodmac’s summary said around 9 billion barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) had been discovered by the trio of Shell, Total and Galp (including contingent resources).

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The above figure undeniably is a modest estimate, given the resource potential posted by Galp alone. In April 2024, Galp confirmed the flow test of Mopane-1X was successful with an in-place estimate of 10 billion barrels of oil equivalent. Wood Mackenzie sees 900 million recoverable resource in Mopane1X well.

Wood Mackenzie envision an FPSO development for each field, with national production peaking at 778 KBPD in 2035.

Paul Eardley Taylor, Head of Oil and Gas at Standard Bank, was evidently blown away by the resource potential in a presentation at the ONS conference held in Stavanger, Norway in August. He noted that a staggering $50 billion investible capital (around the same funding required for oil and gas exploitation in Guyana) will be required to develop oil and gas resources discovered so far in the Orange Basin offshore Namibia.

The Standard Bank oil guru expects to see a phased development that will require using multiple FPSOs, tie-ins of green fields to nearby existing infrastructure, floating LNG and interconnecting infrastructure between two or more fields.

“High gas-oil ratios present a challenge for full development. A phased multi-FPSO approach for oil is planned, adding some complexity to gas monetisation via LNG (floating or land-based terminal).

“Namibia’s significant RE potential is highly attractive to integrated energy companies, enabling them to include RE development with O&G development,” said Taylor.