AfrOil: TotalEnergies said to be heading for a big discovery offshore Namibia

Early reports indicate that TotalEnergies (France) has made a major discovery at Venus-1x, its wildcat exploration well at the PEL 56 licence area offshore Namibia.

Thus far, the company has not commented on the status of the well, which is being drilled in 3,000-metre-deep water. However, anonymous industry sources informed Upstream late last week that initial results from Venus-1x suggested that the well had tapped into a very large hydrocarbon structure within the Orange Basin.

One source described early results from the well as “very, very encouraging” and indicative that the company was drilling into “a very thick reservoir” of crude oil and natural gas. Meanwhile, another source speculated that Venus might turn out to be even larger than Graff, a field located directly to the east where Shell (UK) struck oil in January of this year.