Tower awarded new offshore Namibia license
Offshore staff
LONDON – Tower Resources Namibia Ltd. has signed a new petroleum agreement (PA) with Namibia’s government giving it an 80% operated interest in offshore blocks 1910A, 1911, and 1912B.
Partners are state oil company Namcor and ZM Fourteen Investment CC.
The PA covers 23,297 sq km (8,995 sq mi) of the northern Walvis basin and Dolphin Graben. Although the region is little explored recent drilling results have proven the presence of a working oil-prone petroleum system and good quality turbidite and carbonate reservoirs.
Blocks 1910A and 1911 formed part of Tower’s original license PEL0010, which the company and its partners, Repsol and Arcadia Expro Namibia relinquished in 2015.
The PA comprises an initial exploration period of four years followed by options to enter into two renewal periods of two years each.
Work will include regional play fairway evaluation, sequence stratigraphy, sedimentology and basin modeling, geochemical, gravity and magnetics analysis, 2D/3D seismic interpretation and mapping, and petrophysics and well failure analysis, based on a database that will comprise:
- 5,000 km (3,107 mi) of existing 2D seismic and relevant well data
- Analyzed and potentially reprocessed 2D data
- At least 1,000 sq km (386 sq mi) of acquired 3D seismic data
- Oil seep satellite data and piston-coring reports.
The minimum exploration expenditure for the Initial Exploration Period is $5 million, which is to be supported by a bank guarantee of $0.5 million.
Geological studies have identified the presence of Albian carbonate and Upper Cretaceous and Palaeocene turbidite reservoir intervals, also demonstrated in offset wells such as Norsk Hydro’s 1911/15-1 well on the 1911 block in the 1990s which encountered oil shows.
Multiple structural traps across the new license area include large four-way dip closured structures in the west and four-way and three-way fault dependent structural closures within the Dolphin Graben.
In addition, potential stratigraphic traps associated with Cretaceous and Palaeogene basin floor turbidite systems are apparent.
Tower also sees potential for deepwater turbidite reservoir interbedded with mature source rocks, analogous to plays explored by Tullow and others in the southern part of the basin.
11/07/2018