Namibia Pulls Ahead of South Africa in Orange Basin Oil Race

Commodity
โดย Oilprice.com·Read original
Summary · why it matters

Namibia is rapidly emerging as Africa's next major oil producer while neighboring South Africa, which controls roughly two-thirds of the same Orange Basin petroleum province, remains years behind in developing essentially the same petroleum system. TotalEnergies' deepwater Venus Project in offshore Namibia now targets an initial production capacity of roughly 150,000 barrels of oil per day, with first oil aimed for 2030, and the Venus-1X discovery is estimated to contain 1.5 billion barrels of light crude and 4.8 trillion cubic feet of gas. TotalEnergies has also taken over operations of the massive Mopane discovery from Portugal's Galp Energia. Last month, Shell and its JV partners reported a major oil discovery at the Merlin-1X exploration well within Petroleum Exploration Licence 39, with recoverable reserves estimated at 750 million barrels for Phase 1, marking a critical turnaround after a $400 million impairment earlier in 2025 on older discoveries. Namibia's rapid ascent has been driven by a stable, single-window regulatory model that allows exploration and appraisal permits to be secured within three to nine months, while South Africa's overlapping regulatory authority and prolonged approval processes can stretch permitting timelines to as long as five years, compounded by ongoing environmental litigation that has blocked projects.

Impact on stocks 3

Energy Transition & Power Demand± Mixed · 2 stocks
Shell plc
SHEL
▲ PositiveTechnologyrelevance

Shell reports major oil discovery at Merlin-1X with 750 million barrels recoverable, a turnaround after impairment.

Galp Energia Nom
0B67
▼ NegativeCompetitionrelevance

TotalEnergies takes over operatorship of Mopane discovery from Galp, reducing Galp's role.

Energy▲ · 1 stocks
TotalEnergies SE
TTE
▲ PositiveTechnologyrelevance

TotalEnergies' Venus Project targets 150k bpd with first oil by 2030, and it takes over Mopane operations.

© 2026 MarketDXNews