BW Energy is negotiating with other operators in Namibia’s Orange Basin to secure a drilling rig for accelerated exploration near its Kudu gas discovery. The Oslo-listed junior manages Production Licence (PL) 3, which includes the 1.3 trillion cubic foot Kudu field. The company was ready to develop this field when major oil finds by TotalEnergies and Shell sparked a drilling boom, revealing significant oil and gas reserves in the basin.
As a result, BW decided to shoot fresh 3D seismic last year over PL 3 to see if it could identify Cretaceous discoveries similar to those discovered by its nearby neighbors. It was close to completing analysis of these seismic data when, last month, Galp Energia announced it had discovered 10 billion barrels of oil equivalent in-place resources with its Mopane-1X and -2X wells in a block immediately to the west.
BW chief executive Carl Arnet told analysts late last week that, in light of the Mopane find, the company has managed to secure access to additional seismic data just outside PL 3. “We have decided to bring that into our data set and extend our analysis of our license. We find this (new data) extremely interesting, and it gives us a lot of good data points,” he said in the company’s first-quarter conference call.
Interpretation of the initial data has enhanced BW’s depositional model and de-risked potential targets, with additional prospects identified. Chief operating officer Lin Garner Espey explained to analysts on May 24 that two play types have been pinpointed so far: the Barremian-age Kudu gas play and the Santonian-Campanian play, “which is more analogous to what the folks in the blocks adjacent to use have made discoveries on.” He said that Mopane is a Santonian-Campanian prospect.
BW has secured long-lead items for a 2025 exploration campaign, with Arnet indicating that drilling in the Orange basin could start within the next 12 months. “Increased drilling activity has improved rig availability, and our discussions with other operators in the Orange basin have been very productive,” Arnet said. “We may access drilling capacity sooner than expected. We aim to start as early as 2025.” Rhino Resources plans to bring a drillship to the Orange basin for a two-well program in late 2024, with Chevron possibly starting their drilling around the same time. The schedules for TotalEnergies, Shell, and Galp to return rigs to the Orange Basin remain uncertain.
