Namibia: Qatar to accelerate development of offshore oil finds

Le Qatar veut accélérer le développement des découvertes pétrolières offshore en Namibie

The head of QatarEnergy, who is also Qatar's energy minister, said the company wanted to accelerate the development of two oil wells it discovered off the coast of Namibia with joint venture partners earlier this year.

Saad al-Kaabi said that drilling is planned for 2023 to better understand deliverability and capacity, but did not say when the two oil discoveries will come on stream.

QatarEnergy holds a 30% stake in Venus X1 while field operator TotalEnergies holds 40%, Impact Oil and Gas holds 20% and Namibian state-owned company NAMCOR holds 10%.

In the Graff-1 well, Shell Plc and QatarEnergy each hold a 45% interest, while NAMCOR holds the remaining 10%.

The discoveries could make Namibia, OPEC member Angola's southern neighbour, another oil producer along the African Atlantic coast.

The companies have not yet detailed the quantities found, but the discoveries are likely to be in the billions of barrels, Namibia's minister of mines and energy said in September. 

"We are trying to accelerate this as quickly as possible to ensure that we can finalise the development," Al-Kaabi told journalists in Windhoek during a visit to the southern African country.

"These developments always take years to develop, it's not something that can be done very quickly and it's a deep offshore development, so it has its complications."

Namibia's energy minister, Tom Alweendo, told an oil conference in Dakar last month that the joint venture partners could start production in four years.

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