Africa Oil anticipates that early in the next year, the TotalEnergies-led partnership in Block 2913B offshore Namibia will begin appraisal drilling on the deepwater Venus light oil and associated gas discoveries.
The partners should be able to deal with any lingering questions about reservoir distribution and dynamic behavior thanks to a variety of wells and production flow testing. Africa Oil has an indirect interest because it has a 30.8% stake in Impact, one of the partners.
The company also has a 20% operating interest in Block 3B/4B offshore South Africa, on trend with Venus and the Shell-operated Graff oil discovery, both in the Orange Basin.
Last month, the partners secured approval to extend the license by a further two years, with studies continuing on maturing drilling prospects.
Offshore Nigeria, Africa Oil has an interest (via the local company Prime) in the Egina oil field. With production falling due to reservoir decline, certain wells will be shut in for planned interventions.
An infill drilling program has been pushed back to 2023 due to the late arrival of the rig; the partners had planned to drill up to six development wells.
The conversion to the conditions of Nigeria’s new Petroleum Industry Act and the renewal of the OML 127 and OML 130 licenses are two projects that Prime and its upstream partners are currently working on. Through a subsea tieback to the Egina FPSO to the south, this would make it easier to make a final investment decision on the development of the Preowei oil discovery.
