GBP8 Feb 2023 15:19
Namibia spending spree: TotalEnergies chief executive Patrick Pouyanne Photo: AFP/SCANPIX
Namibia: TotalEnergies to spend half its exploration budget on Venus drilling blitz
Two rigs, three wells and four drill stem tests aim to prove up billion-barrel oil play
8 February 2023 14:44 GMT Updated 8 February 2023 15:00 GMT
By Iain Esau
in London
TotalEnergies is ploughing half of its 2023 global exploration budget into an imminent exploration and appraisal drilling blitz in Namibia to prove that last year’s Venus-1 wildcat opened up a commercial multibillion-barrel oil play.
A year ago, the day before Russia invaded Ukraine, Upstream broke the news that the French supermajor had made a huge ultra-deepwater discovery in the Orange basin, with sources suggesting it could hold between 3 billion and 12 billion barrels of oil.
Since then, chief executive Patrick Pouyanne has been coy about the scale of the discovery, but today, in the company’s quarterly results call, while still expressing caution, he described the acreage is a “potential new golden block.”