Following promising signs from its oil discovery offshore Namibia in the Orange Basin, Shell has revealed plans to drill two more wells in its Namibian licence area. 

This is according to Shell’s CEO Wael Sawan, who last week cited “encouraging data” for the possible development of a new oil basin off the coast of Namibia. 

Sawan stated that the additional wells will be drilled over the next six to nine months. 

The international oil major plans to drill one exploration well, one appraisal well and conduct one flow test at its exploration licenses offshore Namibia, said Sawan, according to international media reports.

“There is a lot of encouraging data that we have identified,” he said.

 Shell has, thus far, made four significant discoveries in Namibia, namely the Graff, La Rona, Lesedi and Jonker wells. 

Shell and TotalEnergies have recently made several promising discoveries in Namibia. 

Because of the promising results, Shell has decided to invest around one-quarter of its deepwater exploration budget in Namibia, Sawan said. 

The company’s overall exploration budget is around US$1 billion (N$18.5 billion). Shell has such “belief” in the scale of its oil and gas discoveries in Namibia’s Orange Basin that it is expected to funnel an estimated US$250 million (N$4.6 billion) into its Orange Basin activities. 

Meanwhile, Shell delivered another quarter of strong operational and financial performance, capturing opportunities in volatile commodity markets. 

“We continue to simplify our portfolio while delivering more value with less emissions. Shell is commencing a US$3.5 billion buyback programme for the next three months, bringing the buybacks for the second half of 2023 to US$6.5 billion, well in excess of the US$5 billion announced at Capital Markets Day in June. This takes total announced shareholder distributions for 2023 to approximately US$23 billion,” a Shell statement reads.