By the end of the second quarter of 2020, data from drill bits may tell us whether or not the world has found the next Eagle Ford, and it’s all going down in Africa …
To hear mainstream media tell it, you would think that the oil and gas era is coming to an end. That assertion, however, could not be further from the truth. The world’s thirst for oil is set to keep soaring with oil demand growth not likely to peak over the next two decades as economies in the developing countries continue to expand.
Over the past five years, we have seen far less exploration and discovery of oil than what we are consuming. In other words, the world still needs new oil. Existing fields are declining at 3-4% per year.
The new oil that’s coming online offshore Guyana, Brazil and Norway this year will help to close that gap somewhat, but the continued decline in U.S. shale fields could upset the equation.
That calls for the African continent to step up to the plate, and also brings to the world’s attention a country that has never before produced oil: Namibia, a new frontier and home to a basin that rivals Eagle Ford in size and hopes to rival it in potential.
This is the Kavango Basin, a 6.3-million-acre basin with a 12-billion-barrel original oil in place potential, and the entire basin was recently acquired by an ambitious Canadian explorer called Reconnaissance Energy Africa Ltd (TSXV: RECO, OTC: RECAF)
Africa: Vastly Underexplored
New producing countries from sub-Saharan Africa are beginning to redraw the continent’s oil and gas map. Today, the putative class valedictorians, Nigeria and Angola, together pump around 4 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude and also dominate natural gas output. Only a handful of other countries in the region produce more than a couple of hundred thousand barrels of oil and gas equivalent.
A few years from now, however, the balance could be very different with Uganda, Kenya, Ghana and Niger developing fields each with a potential capacity for over 100,000 bpd of oil.
Now, Reconnaissance Energy Africa is hoping to put Namibia on the map onshore, while supermajors such as Exxon, Shell and Total SA are hoping to bring Namibia fame offshore.
A few years ago, during the shale boom, Recon Africa went looking for shale in Namibia and discovered a deep giant basin, the Kavango Basin.
The Kavango Basin is an extension of the Permian Karoo shales of South Africa, Botswana and Namibia. It’s never seen a drill bit, yet it could become an analogue to one of the world’s largest shale discoveries in South Africa. The ultra-deep basin simulates in many ways the kind of environment you see in Eagle Ford:
– 6.3 million total acres to Eagle Ford’s 6.7 million acres in geographic size
– Potential for an estimated 12 billion barrels OOIP (Original Oil in Place) and 119 TCF OGIP(Original Gas in Place), to be determined whether it’s actually there and if so, technically recoverable. If it were, that’s significantly higher than Eagle Ford’s 2.4 billion OOIP and 50 TCF OGIP.
Speaking to Oilprice.com, Jay Park, CEO of…
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