We can now confidently confirm an active onshore petroleum basin – minister
The Ministry of Mines and Energy and Reconnaissance Energy Africa (ReconAfrica) on Thursday announced that data from the preliminary analysis of the 6-2 well provides clear evidence of a working conventional petroleum system in the Kavango Basin.
The 6-2 well is the first of a three-well drilling programme. The well sample log of the 6-2 provides over 200 meters (over 660 feet) of oil and natural gas indicators over three discrete intervals in a stacked sequence of reservoir and source rock.
ReconAfrica said in a statement that extraction of oil from these samples and subsequent fingerprinting for key characteristics of the liquids, support an active petroleum system with multiple source intervals.
Dan Jarvie, petroleum systems chemist and member of ReconAfrica’s Advisory Board said these results are indicative of migrated, thermogenic petroleum and occur over three different intervals in the 6-2 test well.
“The intervals penetrated include highly porous, permeable sediments and marine source rocks as predicted, and an extensive marine carbonate lithofacies. Mud gas results indicate a high BTU gas with the presence of light oil in numerous cutting samples. Based on these initial results, the components and processes for a working petroleum system are all present,” Jarvie added.
Mines and Energy Minister, Tom Alweendo said the results of the well confirm a big potential for a very valuable energy resource and therefore a significant development for onshore exploration.
“The positive results of this well have provided us with the critical information required to unlock the country’s petroleum prospects and is the first step in the process of locating significant accumulations. We can now confidently confirm Namibia is endowed with an active onshore petroleum basin,” Alweendo said.
Meanwhile, progress is being made on the second drill site, the 6-1 well. ReconAfrica said with drilling, coring and logging operations now complete on the 6-2 location, their rig is being mobilized to the 6-1 location, 16 km (10 miles) north of 6-2 drill site. This second well is designed to evaluate the petroleum systems discovered in the first well (6-2) in an area of maximum thickness.
The ministry and ReconAfrica are working with Core Laboratories, GeoMark Research and Netherland Sewell & Associates Inc to provide further detailed analysis of all data.
