Subscribe & Follow
Advertise your job vacancies
Trending
Shell pulls out of Namibia oil discovery
Shell will write down around $400m over an oil discovery offshore Namibia that it deemed commercially unviable in a blow to the country's efforts to become a crude producer. Shell told Reuters that discovered oil and gas resources in offshore block PEL39 in Namibia "cannot currently be confirmed for commercial development."
The logo of British multinational oil and gas company Shell is displayed during the LNG 2023 energy trade show in Vancouver. Source: Reuters/Chris Helgren
Shell and its partners QatarEnergy and Namibia's national oil company first discovered hydrocarbon in block PEL39 in 2022, which together with another discovery TotalEnergies made in a nearby block sparked huge global interest in the southern African country which has no oil and gas production.
Shell drilled nine wells in the licence over the past three years, making several other discoveries.
More recently, Portuguese oil company Galp also made a major discovery in a different offshore licence.
But the British company encountered technical and geological difficulties for the development of the resources.
Hard rock
CEO Wael Sawan told analysts on 31 October that Namibia's acreage was "very challenging," and that the lower permeability of the rock made extracting oil and gas harder.
Sources told Reuters that the offshore discoveries also had a high natural gas content, further complicating their development.
The company said in a trading update ahead of fourth quarter results on 30 January that it expects to take an exploration write off of around $400m, without providing details.
It will take another $300m write off related mainly to exploration licences in Colombia, the company said.
Related
Morocco banks on green hydrogen to reach energy goals Ahmed Eljechtimi 7 Mar 2025 Chevron also comes up short in Namibia energy exploration Ron Bousso 16 Jan 2025 Russian oligarch says we haven’t yet reached peak oil 12 Dec 2024 Consumer insights agency, KLA, reveals the Quarterly Buzz Results for Q3 2024KLA 19 Nov 2024 Court bid to block TotalEnergies gas project off West Coast 7 Nov 2024 Big benefits of investing in Africa's upstream sector Fiyinfolu Okedare 6 Nov 2024 Middle East tension spoils petrol party in SA for November Lindsey Schutters 4 Nov 2024 New Act swings energy balance in favour of Mantashe policy Lindsey Schutters 1 Nov 2024
Source: Reuters
Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the world's largest multimedia news provider, reaching billions of people worldwide every day.
Go to: https://www.reuters.com/
