THE Canadian company exploring for oil and gas in north-eastern Namibia, Reconnaissance Energy Africa (ReconAfrica), announced last week plans for drilling its first Naingopo exploration well in the Damara Fold Belt in June 2024.
Making the announcement via an operations update on Thursday, 18 April 2024, ReconAfrica stated that civil works to build access roads and the well pad, as well as drilling a water well, have already commenced. Once these projects are complete, then the Jarvie-1 drilling rig can be sent to the area.
“The well is targeting 163 Mbl (million barrels) of unrisked prospective oil resources, or 843 Bcf (billion cubic feet) of unrisked prospective natural gas resources,” the update reads.
The exploration well is expected to go to a depth of approximately 3 800 metres and is projected to encounter four primary reservoir intervals targeting both oil and natural gas.
Drilling is expected to take approximately 90 days, and will include three sets of logging operations, coring and reservoir testing.
Depending on the results at Naingopo, a second Damara Fold Belt could be drilled, targeting 278 million barrels of unrisked prospective oil resources, or 1.5 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of unrisked prospective natural gas resources.
Drilling of the second Damara Fold Belt well is expected to commence in the fourth quarter of 2024.
Additionally, ReconAfrica is expected to soon begin the process for a potential joint venture. The company stressed that “only strong bids that enhance shareholder and stakeholder value will be considered.”
Brian Reinsborough, ReconAfrica president and CEO, said; “We are meeting our partner Namcor (National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia) and the Ministry of Mines and Energy this week to finalise the detailed drilling programme and future drilling and subsurface data acquisition plans.
We thank them for their continued support and are encouraged by the overwhelming support from the people in Namibia, particularly those in Kavango East and Kavango West regions. We recently met both governors of the Kavango regions, who continue to express gratitude for Recon’s safe activities and community involvement”.
“To date, we have employed more than 1 350 people from the region, and our 36 community water wells have positively impacted the lives of over 10 000 people.
We look forward to employing more people from the local communities now that our operations have once again progressed to the exploration and appraisal drilling phase.”
A previous ReconAfrica update in mid-2023 provided a prospective resource estimate of 22.4 tcf of undiscovered gas initially-in-place for the Damara Fold Belt gas play, located in Petroleum Exploration Licence (PEL) 73 in the Kavango Basin.
Last year’s update was based on ReconAfrica’s strategy to fast-track acquisition and processing of an additional
1 100km2 two dimensional (2D) seismic programme over the Damara Fold Belt play, which was initially discovered during the first phase of 2D seismic acquisition in 2021.
ReconAfrica had then identified nine anticlinal folds and 12 anticlinal leads on PEL 73, with initial resource estimates having been placed at 22.4 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered gas initially-in-place.
As such, the Damara Fold Belt as well as the adjacent Karoo Rift play an integral part of ReconAfrica’s original exploration concept for the licence area.