By Ron Bousso
LONDON (Reuters) -Shell said on Wednesday it had successfully completed drilling a fourth exploration well, Lesedi-1X, in Namibia that confirmed the presence of hydrocarbons.
Shell and France’s TotalEnergies have made several oil and gas discoveries off the coast of the southern African country in recent years, leading to a sharp increase in exploration activity there.
In its statement on Wednesday, Shell said data following the successful fourth drilling confirmed the presence of hydrocarbons, adding “further evaluation is required to determine development potential”.
Shell and its partners QatarEnergy and Namibia’s national oil company plan to drill two further wells in Namibia by the third quarter of this year, according to a filing to the government dated March.
The Namibian government has also approved a Shell application to drill another 10 exploration and appraisal wells in Namibia, a Shell spokesman said.
TotalEnergies made an oil discovery in February 2022 in the Venus well in Namibia’s Petroleum Exploration Licence (PEL) 56, which analysts at Barclays estimate holds 3 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe).
Shell reported discoveries in the Graff, La Rona and Jonker wells in PEL 39, which together are estimated to hold 1.7 billion boe, according to Barclays.
(Reporting by Ron Bousso; editing by Jason Neely, Barbara Lewis and Ed Osmond)
