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Intriguing structures': New oil promise identified in Namibia acreage outside red hot Orange basin

Studies suggest presence of multibillion-barrel structures in Tower Resources’ Walvis basin blocks offshore Namibia

16 June 2023 9:33 GMT UPDATED 16 June 2023 9:39 GMT

By Iain Esau in London

London-listed junior Tower Resources has identified intriguing structures on blocks in Namibia’s Walvis basin that it hopes could host billions of barrels of oil.

Most industry attention in Namibia has been focused on the Orange basin, driven by the huge oil discoveries made by Shell and TotalEnergies, although the country’s other basins are starting to garner more interest.

Shell aims to ‘move at pace’ after Namibian well test success

Read more

Tower operates blocks 1910A, 1911 and 1912B — also known as Petroleum Exploration Licence (PEL) 96 — off the Skeleton Coast, sandwiched by acreage that ExxonMobil controls in the Walvis and Namibe basins.

The reasons for Tower’s optimism are results from a just completed basin and thermal maturity study over PEL 96 which, it said, “shows clear evidence of a working petroleum system” in the Dolphin graben and found direct hydrocarbon indicators (DHIs), which explorers always want to see before they drill.

These DHIs include large gas chimneys on the seabed and seismic anomalies indicating shallow gas accumulations above and close to these chimneys.

The study assimilated data from large 2D seismic datasets and exploration wells, including one drilled in the acreage by Norsk Hydro in 1994 from which oil cores have been recovered.

Tower chief executive Jeremy Asher said: “We are excited by the results of the basin modelling work and its indication of the prospectivity of (the) licenses in Namibia.

“It explains neatly the results of the Norsk Hydro well, the source of lacustrine oil found within it, the reasons why that oil found its way into that well and subsequently migrated away from it.”

He said the study’s conclusions “indicate the potential for either of the giant billion-barrel-plus structures (called Alpha and Gamma) in the west of the license to be charged”.

Namibia will not ‘seize’ stakes in current oil and gas licences, says government

Read more

In addition, Asher said the oil migration pathways, coupled with the industry successes in drilling stratigraphic plays in the Orange basin, “enhance our interest in the similar stratigraphic leads that we interpret on the flanks of the Alpha structure, in particular”.

Tower is currently carrying out oil seep analysis to accompany the basin modelling work, and a review of existing volumetric data on the prospects and leads that have already been identified is underway.

All this information will help the company decided where 3D seismic should be acquired.

Tower has an 80% stake in PEL 96 and is partnered by state owned Namcor.

Agree

Looking forward to the volumetrics coming soon indicating how much oil is expected in the potential reservoirs/structures, in particular the Mega structures. Interestingly Tower also mention the Potential stratigraphic traps are also recognised in central areas of PEL 96 along the western flanks of the Phoenix High, and potentially the Elephant High slightly to the South. These potential stratigraphic traps have an up-dip to the coast (east) architecture similar to some of the major recent discoveries further south in Namibia.

You make me laugh…. The government are too busy handing out subsidies to battery factories and all other things “green” to care about the LSE. Surprised the idiot gave up his US green card in the end.

From Upstreamonline just now:

———-

UK oil and gas major and Gulf of Mexico operator reportedly in merger discussions

Harbour Energy and Talos Energy reportedly in M&A talks

7 June 2023 8:04 GMT UPDATED 7 June 2023 8:30 GMT

By Russell Searancke in Oslo

The UK's largest oil and gas producer Harbour Energy is reportedly in discussions over a potential merger with Talos Energy, the Gulf of Mexico-focused oil and gas company.

The two companies are joint venture partners in the proposed Zama offshore oil development in Mexico and, in Harbour's case especially, have ambitions to grow including via mergers and acquisitions.

The Reuters news agency quoted its own sources as saying that talks have been on and off between the two sides for at least six months, but negotiations had rekindled in recent weeks.

Reuters' sources cautioned there was no guarantee that a deal would be reached.

Harbour’s management — led by chief executive Linda Cook — has been scathing about the impacts of the UK’s Energy Profits Levy, and has said the company is open to acquisition opportunities that would add a second core region to the business.

“We made progress diversifying organically while continuing to explore opportunities for meaningful but disciplined M&A,” Cook said in March this year. “And as we’ve demonstrated over the past year, if we don’t see acquisitions that are right for the company and our investors, we’ll continue to return excess cash to our shareholders.”

Talos recently completed the $1.1 billion acqusition of Gulf of Mexico-focused EnVen, and has been executing on multiple major carbon capture and storage lease acquisitions.

More details to come.

bull****

Kever

I agree to some extent.

The advantage of having such a low market cap is that even a 50% dilution is only a couple of million £ in new shares of which many will be held for the drill if you ask me.

Say £50k a day being sold that’s 40 trading days to burn half the new shares. However if we get some good news on finance, rig, Namibia or South Africa this would quickly be a lot less than 40 days.

It all depends on the newsflow going forward I believe.

N

TRP has nothing to worry about in Namibia the shorters are just using this as an excuse to trash the company.

Namcor has already a share of TRP licence.

Also from Upstreamonline yesterday:

“ Upstream was emailed by one oil investor in Namibia who’s view is that Alweendo’s proposals are “expected to be forward looking,” targeting new licences for both mining plus oil and gas, and not existing licences.

He noted that Namcor, Namibia’s state oil company, already has carried interests in oil and gas exploration activities, but there is no parallel in the mining sector, although the government has just set up a state company for the mining sector called Epangelo.

This knowledgeable source said while Namcor’s current exploration costs are carried by its partners, “everyone suspects that future licence terms could have full carries”.

These ‘carries’ could be what Alweendo was referring to when he talked about “petroleum production”, as opposed to petroleum companies.”

Upstream was emailed by one oil investor in Namibia who’s view is that Alweendo’s proposals are “expected to be forward looking,” targeting new licences for both mining plus oil and gas, and not existing licences.

He noted that Namcor, Namibia’s state oil company, already has carried interests in oil and gas exploration activities, but there is no parallel in the mining sector, although the government has just set up a state company for the mining sector called Epangelo.

This knowledgeable source said while Namcor’s current exploration costs are carried by its partners, “everyone suspects that future licence terms could have full carries”.

These ‘carries’ could be what Alweendo was referring to when he talked about “petroleum production”, as opposed to petroleum companies.

Thank you Optimus. Enjoyed that:)

«Italy has refused to comply with the Panels instructions. »

Not surprising maybe. Very soon we can start taking their assets!

LTT I fully agree with you that 65% is higher than the typical “normal” share that an operating company would hold (40% to 50% would be more normal) and it makes sense to farm down. If the reason this initiative came now already and not post FID is because Navitas has found it a bit more challenging to raise funds than expected OR because they have been approached by another oil company I have no idea, but the latter could also be true if not likely.

My favourite is Murphy Oil as several of Navitas top managers came from this oil company.

You did mention Ithaca earlier which is interesting being majority owned by the Israeli Dalek which again is connected to Navitas. However I was just pondering if Ithaca would be too busy with Cambo oil field to have any time or money for Sea Lion. We will see.

More importantly I do expect that confirmed news of another oil company joining the Sea Lion project will raise our share price significantly as the likelihood of getting to FID then increases.

Good luck all holders

N

Namibia Basin modeling results due end of May (at the earliest).

Looking forward to this!

“Examining the possibility of introducing another partner to the project”….funny that…I was thinking yesterday that this option could be one way for Navitas with their 65% share of lessen the capital they need to raise to get to FID. Say they farm out so they are left with 40% - 45% then getting finance would get easier. Something is brewing!

'Investment grade' refers to the group of credit ratings that imply a low default risk (from AAA to BBB-). Companies with a rating in this range will issue debt at a lower interest rate than others with a poorer credit rating, allowing them to obtain financing more cheaply.

Italy’s credit rating can be found for example using the link below where it is obvious that they are already close to losing their Investment Grade rating, hence they would do anything not to rock the boat so to speak:

https://tradingeconomics.com/italy/rating#:~:text=Standard%20%26%20Poor's%20credit%20rating%20for,at%20BBB%20with%20stable%20outlook.

Being deposited in an ancient freshwater lake this Jurassic to early Cretaceous lacustrine source rock (until late in the Cretaceous, when the southern Boreal Ocean appears to have inundated the area from the southeast) was always going to be waxy and was known since the outset of drilling in the North Falklands basin.

All costs associated with the arbitration were funded on a non-recourse (“no win – no fee”) basis from a specialist arbitration funder. After payments due to the arbitration funder, Rockhopper expects to retain approximately 80% of the award (assuming full recovery of the award). Further analysis is required to establish the tax treatment on any payments related to the award.

https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/990919/malcy-s-blog-oil-price-rockhopper-arrow-coro-deltic-990919.html

hi captduckling

so nice to hear from you after all these years. i’m well tx still standing after an endless run of dry well (desire oil to water, trp, x****e, hur oil to water, eco) to name a few). sorry to hear about captguns (later …..sort of … promoted to admiralguns). still remember meeting up with you guys for beers before des agm. had such a great time. so sorry captguns is not around for the next chapter of the falklands oil saga although you never know he might be tuning in from up there :)

n

I’ve been searching the web for possible FPSO candidates for redeployment over the last few weeks and in my honest opinion this will likely be our FPSO:

https://www.bluewater.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/BLW_FPSO_BleoHolm_leaflet.pdf

As far as I understand this is the best fit. It will be available end of 2024 (or 2025 if option to extend taken by current operator).

Did anyone else identify any suitable candidates?

N.

Eco was meant to pay $52 million for 100% of JHI. Arg gets 9.3% of JHI of the enlarged JHI, so roughly £4million plus whatever you value ARG at. Current market cap of ARG is say £2 million so £4.2 million.

One year ago ARG market cap was 6 million and one would assume ARG would easily have travhest £6 million market cap now that SL is very likely to go ahead with the Navitas news if it was not for JHI interrupting everything.

Just thinking:)

N.

Energean chief executive Mathios Rigas:

« Energean also holds offshore acreage in Italy which has long been closed off to exploration, although Rigas senses change could be afoot “because we’re seeing a shift from the new Italian government where they are considering reopening its waters”».

https://www.upstreamonline.com/exclusive/energean-eyes-elusive-oil-in-east-med-exploration-drive/2-1-1444268

Would be strange if the Italians continue to refuse to Pay RKH the ICSID award but at the same time reopening their waters. Something has got to give!