Namibian Oil ~ it's only a matter of time....

[Michael Alexander]

Many of the old timers always said it...... that here be oil along this coast and plenty of it..... did you know that only a very small portion of the namibian coast has ever been surveyed for oil, with the "rush" only starting in the the last few years..... anyhow for those of you that find this topic of interest, I include the latest press release from chariot oil .....

It is only a matter of time, before the boom time hits the entire Namibian coast....

[SandyB]

Mmmm lets hope it means another boom ...  from what I see there is also potential for inland oil ??

[Andrew Darné]

You mean there's a possibility we could have a "Texas" in Nam?
And what about the efforts we should be investing in renewable energies and the move away from carbon fuels?
Just keep BP away from it, we don't want our fishing beaches to end up like the American coastline.

[Michael Alexander]

More and more articles are appearing online, as to how flawed renewable energy might actually be...... it seems they are not cost effective at this stage.,...

I for one am a supporter of Nuclear energy.....

[Andrew Darné]

You like the idea of everything living can glow in the dark; hey where's hadow...? ah there you are! Oinks... gemsbok!

Nuclear is all good while everything goes well... ok fair enough, check the stats, not that many tragedies vs number of stations in the world etc. BUT if the k*k does hit the fan... it does in a big way and for a long time. 2nd problem, you can never demolish a nuclear station. Once it has fulifilled its useful life, they seal it off and thats it... a bloody great big hazard that can glow in the dark.

Then you also have the dilemma of the spent fuel rods/pellets that have to be disposed of. Now check out Google for Vaalputs inthe Northern Cape where they stash all the radioactive waste from Koeberg. It aint necessary if there are other energy sources. My opinion is that we are too archaic in our perceptions and intent to change our ways of living.

Take waste recycling fir instance... I did a bit of Googling a while back looking for recycling centres in the Cape area where we could truck low/no hazard waste for recycling. Didn't find too many places at all. Basic screening and processing can be done here in Omund then truck bulk away for final processing. As you say it is not cost effective considering the export and transport factors vs return on the product value. It is sad since all our waste generated by domestic output goes into the ground without much consideration for recycling.

I know there was a poster up recently at PCC about a depot at Eastgate that collect for recycling, but how many are aware of this and how many make the effort to go through with seperating their waste and doing the necessary.

Sad but true.

Ok... enough babbling.

[Michael Alexander]

Namibia has potentially huge undiscovered offshore oil and gas fields, but a lack of data is hampering investment into the southern African nation, a senior petroleum official said on Friday.


Recent estimates suggest offshore Namibia contains about 166 billion barrels of original oil
Namibia, largely known for its uranium deposits, has the same geological formations as Brazil, where recent oil finds has raised hopes for similar finds across the Atlantic.

"As far as we are concerned the recent estimates suggest offshore Namibia contains about 166 billion barrels of original oil in place, the mean prospective resources are about 42.6 billion barrels of oil, and 128.8 (trillion cubic feet) of gas prospective resources," Immanuel Mulunga, petroleum commissioner at the Ministry of Mines told an African oil conference.

However, only 16 wells have been drilled along the country's vast coastline, half of them in the Kudu gas field, Mulunga added.

The Kudu deep water offshore gas field, being developed by Tullow Oil and Gazprom among others, has proven gas reserves of 1.3 trillion cubic feet but with an upside of 9 trillion cubic feet, said Mulunga.

London-listed Chariot Oil and Gas Ltd, which has a farm out agreement with Petrobas for its block 2714A in Namibia, said it expects to start production in 2013-14 after drilling its first well next year.

Chariot has eight offshore licenses to invest in three exploration blocks in Namibia, which has since 1999 adopted an open licensing system, allowing international oil companies the ability to apply for acreage at any time.

Mulunga said Namibia had the potential to become a major African oil producer, where big finds in Uganda and Ghana have spurred investors to frontier markets not usually associated with oil production.

"Recent results could locate offshore Namibia as one of the larger oil and gas resources contained in the west African coast," Mulunga said.

[Warren Weidemann]

Oil? Hell no! These days the last thing you want, is to discover oil. I think there must be more than a few instances where the oil rich countries have rued the day they discovered oil.
Imagine the good old US of A suddenly taking a pro-active interest in Namibia.
Another oil rich desert country ripe for the picking.

[Michael Alexander]

Could Namibia Be Ten Times Better Than Brazil for Oil?


I logged 9,814 air miles. Took four different flights. Spent a total of 54 hours traveling. All to meet with a man they call "Mr. GO Deep..."

"Mr. GO Deep" is the go to guy in offshore oil development. Oil companies pay him HUGE consulting fees in hopes to identify the next deep or ultra deep offshore oil deposits.

Yet in my recent trip down to Brazil, "Mr. GO Deep" sat at a table with me — just me — for two solid hours, explaining what he's doing in the energy world. And why, while offshore Brazilian oil is good, there's another deep sea play with even better oil prospects. Then he handed me off to several of his able staff, who were equally generous with their time and perspective. A first-class act, in every respect.

Here's what I've found, along with a few ideas of how you can take advantage of the secrets he shared...

Meet "Mr. GO Deep" – The GO TO Man in Deep Oil Discoveries

The man I'm talking about is Marcio Mello — the always-ebullient Brazilian geochemist and CEO of Brazil's HRT Petroleum Co. I first met Marcio back at last year's American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) convention. He wowed the crowd with a discussion of the oil potential of the South Atlantic.

"The Namibian offshore is analogous to that of Brazil," Marcio stated, with slides and hard data to back it up. Then he showed his proprietary research into natural offshore oil seeps off Namibia, and the geochemistry that demonstrates immense hydrocarbon potential. As for the reservoirs, he showed a slide of proprietary seismic data. "And look at this turbidite stuff," he yelled, as a couple hundred seasoned geologists in the room both gasped and chuckled.

Indeed, Namibia is destined for oil riches. "But Namibia," said Marcio, "is way underexplored. So you can put down a little money for the concessions and get very rich."

Any mention of "very rich" makes my ears perk up. When I questioned Marcio further about the offshore Namibia deposits, he was gracious enough to invite me down to see his facilities in Brazil.

Here's What I Found About Namibia...

I looked at seismic. I saw geochemistry. I saw satellite data. I saw gravity and magnetic maps. If there's a frontier spot on earth where you can say that drilling risk is low for wildcat development, it's offshore Namibia. (You just have to be sure to drill in the right place.)

Nothing is easy, of course. There aren't a lot of wells offshore Namibia. Just a handful. But we know there's a giant natural gas field at Kudu in the south, immediately north of the Namibian territorial line with South Africa. So there's a hydrocarbon system out there. Now we know there's gas, so where's the rest of it? As Marcio says, "If I see a little baby, I look for its mama."

After a week in Brazil, I can say something significant. It's that right now, some people (guess who) know more about the deep regions offshore Namibia than Petrobras knew about the deep Campos Basin off Brazil before it drilled the Tupi discovery and found 12 billion barrels of oil.

The Secret Finding Namibia's Oil

To understand what Marcio brings to the table – and his secret for finding deep oil plays — you first have to understand how big oil companies think about exploration...

There are a couple of different exploration philosophies among big oil companies. One philosophy is that the oil company gains an offshore concession and works the heck out of that concession. It puts big bucks into seismic, seismic and more seismic. Then it drills the biggest structure on the concession and MAYBE finds oil.

Or maybe not. Maybe the oil company drills a dry hole, because there's a big structure with no oil. There are all sorts of geological reasons why this might happen. The bottom line is, "You have a wine bottle, but there's no wine in it," as Marcio says.

Another exploration philosophy is that an oil company gains an offshore concession and looks across the entire region for evidence of a petroleum system. Where did the oil and gas originate? Where's the "oil kitchen"? What are the migration pathways? Where could that oil be now? After a lot of work at the REGIONAL level, then the company hones in on its concession and drills — and it's not necessarily the big structure. Maybe it drills lower down, like in the oil kitchen.

I'm telling you things that people have spent BILLIONS of dollars learning the hard way. This is information that took Petrobras years to develop. Marcio had an uphill fight at Petrobras for a long time, working to replace "turbidite" thinking (a prolific kind of oil-bearing formation) with "petroleum systems" thinking.

Today, this "petroleum systems approach" is the kind of thinking that Marcio brings to the table.

Why Namibia's Oil Is Even More Promising Than Brazil's

If you're a long time Whiskey reader, you already know I'm very bullish on Brazilian oil opportunities. But there are some things that make the Namibian oil plays even better. Allow me to explain...

Brazil is about to pass a set of new petroleum laws that will put its entire pre-salt region under the jurisdiction of a new national oil company (NOC), meaning NOT Petrobras, which is publicly owned. Future pre-salt deals will be along the lines of production sharing arrangements (PSAs) with the NOC, which private oil companies HATE because they can't book the reserves and impress Wall Street.

There are all sorts of issues about how much interest Petrobras will get in future Brazil offshore concessions (30% is the current number). And how Petrobras will be the operator, on behalf of the NOC, of all future pre-salt plays off Brazil. It's going to be complicated, if not hairy!

The bottom line is that if an international oil company wants to look for big oil fields, like pre-salt plays and find and book those huge volumes of oil, it has to go somewhere else.

Where else? Why... Namibia, of course! Offshore Namibia, you can get 10 times the acreage for 1/10th the price. For now..

There are many ways for you to take advantage of this discovery. First, if you're looking for a home run opportunity, try searching some of the smaller oil companies with concessions in Namibia. You'll want to look mainly at ones that are pure plays, though. A second, less exciting but safer way to play it would be to look at some of the big oil service companies that provide the drill bits, rigs, and hardware for general deep sea oil discoveries.

I recently put together a special report on Investing in Offshore Oil that discusses offshore oil investing plays.

LINK: http://whiskeyandgunpowder.com/could-namibia-be-ten-times-better-than-brazil-for-oil/

[Michael Alexander]

Oil and gas explorer Tower Resources (TRP) is on target to drill its first well on licence 0010, offshore Namibia, within the next 16 months.

AIM-listed Tower said the next favourable operating window, between October 2011 and March 2012, remained its operational target as it makes headway with its 3D seismic data.

At the moment, Tower and its partners are focusing on processing the 3D seismic, of which around 65% has so far been completed and proven to be of "excellent quality".

Detailed interpretation to evaluate apparent direct hydrocarbon indicators will get underway in February, it said, after which time operator Arcadia Petroleum will put in place funding and a deepwater drilling rig contract.

Chief executive Peter Kingston said: "Our Namibia interest continues to progress within schedule and I am delighted with the excellent data quality from the 3D seismic survey."

[Michael Alexander]

It's gonna be big....

LINK: http://energyandscarcityinvestor.agorafinancial.com/files/2010/12/ESI_OilKitchen1210.pdf

[Mike Stenson (RIP)]

I get a uneasy feeling about the doc below,  just does not read right... more blue sky than facts.
Think I will hold onto my money....

[Michael Alexander]

Have a look at what the brokers are saying on a daily basis!

LINK: http://www.lse.co.uk/SharePrice.asp?shareprice=CHAR

[Michael Alexander]

From the share boards forum in London, for those of you who are following this tale, if you had bought shares in chariot 7 weeks ago, when I first mentioned this company, you would have had a growth of just over 50% already, the pundits reckon , it';s gonna get bigger....

Here is the chatter,

"I Thought I would just feed back on Mello's presentation....notes are a bit sketchy! Overall you gotta take your hat of to the guy...he is a great presenter, but you better believe what he's saying, because he has lived, breathed and, as he put it 'eaten' Namibia for 30 years....

When opening up on his discussion about Namibia, he says that unfortunately he cannot show us some of the images taken 'because they are the results from the blocks of other guys...but that they were 'very nice results'.......he mentioned that fact that Chariot were doing a big farm in ......he then talked about `HRT's intentions to aggressively shoot seismic in Namibia....shooting the largest 3d seismic ever shot in Southern Africa...finished by June....'from here (sic. London) to Newcastle'....'it will transform our reserves'....they will be drilling at the start of 2012....but he does point out that Chariot will drill first....he talks about one of the structures....'look at the size of the structure'...he loves the 'basement highs...just like the ones in Brazil...it's 'beautiful, beautiful lower cretaceous 100m shale'..... he then showed one of the diagrams (a bar chart), joining up Brazil and West African acreage with a continuum running from North to South, with the alternating West African and Brazilian structure.....and he points out the gapping hole between to giant areas ...which is .....Namibia (great chart....page 53 in the presentation) ......2012 drilling 3 wells...and although Brazil is special, Namibia is not just similar...it's easier....because its shallow. .....he emphasizes how much data they crunch before they drill...data, data, data and a 'multi-discipline approach'....

'No dry wells' is HRT's motto....they carry out more data crunching than any other oil company, from registering the bacteria's biometrics of the oil (to see if they are connected) to 3d – he emphasizes again how confident they are...

On his answer to a question regarding chariot's 20% probability of success, he stresses that everything that chariot have, he did...and he believes that they are conservative....he also hopes that they (Petrobras and Chariot) get together with HRT because they can drill more wells....he was also adamant that Kudu is a gas cap and that if they drilled deeper (just as they did from the gas fields in Brazil) they would hit oil.....we have 78 ex-Petrobras guys in HRT..."