By Desie Heita
Windhoek
One of the companies exploring for oil in Namibia says its latest seismic interpretations have given indication that the country might be sitting on large reserves of oil and gas.
Drilling of a well may take place in two years’ time following the completion of a second seismic survey.
Tower Resources, exploring in three parts of Namibia through its subsidiary Neptune Namibia, said the seismic shots done late last year “confirmed the presence of giant structures which could contain 10 billion barrels of unrisked oil” in the northern offshore of the country.
Arcadia Petroleum, which is the operator of the 0010 licence the site where there seems to be oil, conducted the 2-Dimension seismic acquisition survey in September 2007 and completed the interpretation by the beginning of this year.
“The results confirm the presence of giant structures and indicate a significant probability that these would be oil bearing. Arcadia has calculated that, on a heavily discounted basis for reservoir parameters which contribute to volume, reserve potential is of the order of 10 billion barrels in three giant prospects,” Tower Resources said.
“Large volumes of associated gas would also be present,” the company said.
Tower Resources is listed on the London Stock Exchange’s Alternative Investment Market.
Neptune Namibia holds licences to three offshore blocks of 1910A, 1911 and 2011A in northwest Namibia. It is one of the 11 companies with licences for exploring for oil in Namibia.
“Future plans are being finalised for the next year to significantly increase seismic coverage over the three large prospects with a view to drilling a first well within the next two years,” the company said in its statement.
The company did, however, caution investors that its estimations of volumes are “based upon seismic and amplitude variation with offset data.”
“These estimates are not necessarily representative of future production volumes,” Tower Resources cautions.
The Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Mines and Energy, Joseph Iita, could not be reached for comment.