Canadian minnow, ReconAfrica is returning to the rig site in the Kavango Basin in the north of Namibia, 18 months after the furore that greeted its first seismically defined well in the country’s onshore.
The Company expects to begin drilling Naingopo (Prospect L), in June 2024, “targeting 163Million barrels of unrisked prospective oil resources or 843billion cubic feet of unrisked prospective natural gas resources based on the most recent prospective resources report prepared by Netherland, Sewell & Associates, Inc. (NSAI) dated March 12, 2024”, the company notes in a statement.
ReconAfrica’s primary target is no longer the prospects in the so-called Karoo rift, but now the Damara Fold Belt, the company explains.
Construction of the well pad and access roads have commenced and ReconAfrica has shared its drilling programme and future drilling and subsurface data acquisition plans with its partner, the state hydrocarbon company NAMCOR and the Ministry of Mines and Energy
The Toronto listed explorer, in 2021, drilled two stratigraphic test wells in the Kavango Basin, at the time described by the Canadian geologist Tako Koning, as “an unregarded sedimentary basin”. The 6-1 and 6-2 wells, the company reported, intersected over 300 metres and 200metres of oil and gas shows respectively. ReconAfrica did not call any of these a discovery. Indeed, it stated clearly that “the two wells were drilled to provide stratigraphic, sedimentological, reservoir and geochemical information”. Although the data in both probes was very positive, neither 6-1 nor 6-2 was tested since they were designed to be only stratigraphic wells.
Makandina 8-2, drilled in late 2022, was ReconAfrica’s third well in the basin. It was the company’s first seismically defined probe in the campaign. It failed to encounter economic accumulations of hydrocarbons. The company placed the blame on the absence of a trap or a four-way dip closure. A lot of condemnation ensued, with some media reports cynically questioning the company’s claim that it had proven a working hydrocarbon system in the basin.
The next well is expected to drill to a depth of approximately 12,500 feet or 3,800 metres and is projected to encounter four primary reservoir intervals targeting both oil and natural gas.
Following the drilling of the Naingopo well, ReconAfrica is planning to drill a second Damara Fold Belt well, Prospect P, targeting 278Mllion barrels of unrisked prospective oil resources, or 1.5Trillion cubic feet of unrisked prospective natural gas resources, based on the NSAI Report.
Drilling of the second Damara Fold Belt well is expected to commence in the fourth quarter of 2024, subject to the results of the Naingopo well.
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