QatarEnergy has struck oil again offshore Namibia, adding another discovery to what is becoming one of the most impressive exploration runs in the industry.
The company announced that its Merlin-1X exploration well in Petroleum Exploration License 39 (PEL 39) encountered oil with what it described as the most promising subsurface results seen so far in the license. The well found good reservoir quality, light oil, and limited associated gas—three words exploration teams generally like seeing in the same sentence.
Merlin-1X is the tenth well drilled under PEL 39 and follows three previous discoveries in the block.
At this point, the bigger surprise in Namibia’s Orange Basin might be drilling a dry hole.
Over the past few years, the basin has transformed from a frontier exploration play into one of the world’s most closely watched oil provinces. A steady stream of discoveries by international operators has fueled expectations that Namibia could emerge as a major crude producer in the coming decade.
“We are pleased with this discovery, which follows three earlier discovery announcements in Namibia,” QatarEnergy CEO and Energy Minister Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi said.
The company said the results further strengthen confidence in the Orange Basin as a world-class hydrocarbon province and support QatarEnergy’s strategy of expanding its international upstream portfolio through high-impact exploration.
While QatarEnergy did not release resource estimates for Merlin-1X, the emphasis on reservoir quality and light crude is likely to attract as much attention as the discovery itself. Finding oil is one thing. Finding oil that appears commercially attractive is another.
The discovery was made in partnership with Shell and Namibia’s national oil company.
QatarEnergy continues to build a sizable position in the country, holding interests in four offshore exploration licenses. The company owns 45% of PEL 39 and also participates in PEL 56, PEL 91, and PEL 90, giving it exposure to roughly 34,000 square kilometers of offshore acreage.
The latest result adds another data point to a growing body of evidence suggesting the Orange Basin may still be in the early chapters of its story.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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