Portugal’s oil and gas company Galp has found more light oil and gas-condensate in the second of up to four wells within its current exploration and appraisal (E&A) program in license PEL 83 off the coast of Namibia. This has put a Saipem-owned drillship on the move again to drill the next well in the Orange Basin, where oil discoveries were also made during the Portuguese player’s previous campaign.

The exploration and appraisal activities have heated up in Namibia, following the opening discoveries at Graff-1, La Rona-1, Jonker-1, and Venus-1. The PEL 83 license is situated immediately north of Shell’s PEL 39, where the first three discoveries were made, and close to TotalEnergies’ multi-billion-barrel Venus oil discovery on PEL 56.

After the first of up to four wells that are part of a campaign potentially including two exploration wells and two appraisal wells, the Mopane 1-A appraisal well (well #3), was spud with Saipem’s Santorini drillship on October 23, 2024, Galp confirmed the well encountered light oil and gas-condensate in high-quality reservoir-bearing sands.

Since the Santorini drillship was retained to continue the ongoing exploration and appraisal campaign during the Southern Hemisphere summer to avoid mobilization and demobilization costs, the drilling of the Mopane 2-A (well #4) began in December 2024 within the heart of Namibia’s Orange Basin, said to be emerging as one of the world’s most prospective oil and gas regions.

According to Galp, the Mopane-2A well not only found a hydrocarbon column of gas-condensate in AVO-3 with a thin net pay in the reservoir sweet spot but also discovered a hydrocarbon column of light oil in a smaller reservoir, AVO-4.

“Both reservoirs showed good quality sands, with good porosities and permeabilities, high pressures and low fluid viscosities characteristics, with minimum CO2 and no H2S concentrations. Also, in line with all previous Mopane wells, no water contacts were found,” explained the Portuguese energy firm.

Galp (80%, operator), together with its partners NAMCOR and Custos (10% each), will continue to analyze and integrate all newly acquired data to allow a better understanding of the Mopane complex and assess the commerciality of the discoveries.

The Santorini drillship is now moving to the Mopane-3X exploration well location (Well #5), targeting two stacked prospects, AVO-10 & AVO-13, with an expected spud date around January 1, 2025, as part of the ongoing E&A campaign in the wider Mopane area.

In addition, a high-density and high-resolution proprietary 3D development seismic campaign is also being conducted over the Mopane complex.

The growing interest in Namibia’s Orange Basin is hammered home by Africa Oil, which enlarged its ownership interest in a block containing TotalEnergies’ Venus oil discovery.