Namibia: Country Poised to Become Major Player in Oil Industry

THE quest for oil and gas in Namibia has been ongoing for nearly four decades, but with little or no success so far.

Large international companies like Shell have pulled out and the offshore Kudu gas field still waits to be developed.

The recent visit of a Brazilian oil expert to Namibia has stirred great international interest in exploration circles.

Marcio Rocha Mello who worked for Brazil's renowned Petrobras oil giant for 31 years, started his own exploration consultancy company, High Resolutions Technology (HRT) and was recruited by a newly formed Namibian enterprise to drill for oil along the coast.

"We plan to spend US$500 million over the next two years for data collection and test drilling," says its Managing Director, Swapo Ndume of Enigma Investments, which was launched at the beginning of this month.

"A new dawn has come for Namibia, our country will now be a player in the international oil league."

Namibia has gas - found some 30 years ago - but does it really have oil? Soaring crude oil prices, which hit US$78 this week and the crises in the Middle East, Iran and Iraq have made investors turn to the shores of Africa, especially the west coast.

Nigeria has a thriving oil industry and produces around 11 per cent of all US imports, followed by Angola, which has emerged as Africa's second largest oil producer, especially since the end of the civil war in 2002.

China, Japan and the West have over the past two years been wooing African states in order to secure supply contracts for natural resources, especially oil and gas.

In his recently published book 'Untapped: The Scramble for Africa's Oil' author John Ghazvinian says "African oil is cheaper, safer and more accessible ... no one really knows just how much oil might be there, since no one's ever bothered to check."

Ndume of Enigma told The Namibian in an exclusive interview this week that he and his partners were convinced of local oil resources, supported by the findings of Mello of HRT.

"Mello has studied the coastlines of Brazil and the South Atlantic; especially the geology of Brazil's east coast is similar to that of Namibia," according to Ndume.

"In Brazil, people found lots of oil offshore in depths of 7 000 metres. Along the Namibian coast, companies have never test-drilled below 3 000 metres," Ndume added, "we have contracted HRT to start drilling in early 2009. By June next year we hope to have all the necessary data collected and analysed."

Namibian seismic data is incomplete and HRT would collect its own, using its satellite, Ndume told this newspaper.

Enigma Investments is headquartered in Namibia and owned in three stakes by Ndume himself, Portuguese investor Delecio d'Oliveira and Adonis Polaris, a Greek national.

They formed another company, NamQuest plc in April this year, with offices in London.

"NamQuest is our financial arm and will list on the AIM stock exchange in London by September to raise money for oil exploration in Namibia and later on we intend to list on the Namibia Stock Exchange (NSX)," Ndume revealed.

"Before the end of this year, we will make a big announcement," he added but would not give an indication what this would be.

Enigma has three offshore licence blocks, one along the Skeleton Coast, another opposite Walvis Bay and one near Luederitz.

Ndume and his two partners also have a share in Greendale Universal Holdings, a British outfit registered on the British Virgin Islands, which obtained two licence blocks at the end of 2005.

Interestingly the company has two onshore petroleum exploration licence blocks in southeastern Namibia in the vicinity of Koës.

Meanwhile, Windhoek will host the 2009 World Congress of South Atlantic Margins and Oil Systems, where experts will discuss oil reserves and exploration of southern Africa and South America, putting Namibia on the map.