It is the year of deepwater Namibia, that is for certain, and there will be several gas probes in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Elephant hunting returned to the African hydrocarbon patch in 2020/2021 and continued at a frenzied pace in 2022.
Despite two back-to-back annual Conferences of the Parties (COP 26 & COP 27) in 2021 and 2022, calling for decarbonization, oil companies continued foraging for fossil fuels in the continent’s frontier basins.
In the last edition of Africa Oil+Gas Report for the year 2021, we had declared: “For all we know, 2022 may turn out to be the year of basin
openings. Shell and TOTAL continue their probes of the orange basin off the contiguous coasts of Namibia and South Africa; ENI will test the Lamu basin off Kenya; ReconAfrica will drill the first seismically defined location in the Kavango Basin. The testing of Zimbabwe’s Cahora Bassa basin is close to start”.
While Namibia opened up as a large deep-water frontier, it stumbled as an inland basin hunt. ENI lost its bet offshore Kenya and the jury is still out on Zimbabwe.
But we continue to have a wager on South Africa, despite the systemic opposition to fossil fuel development by the country’s political and business elites.
In this issue, we provide a list of new marginal field operators that look likely to get on the rig sites and start their development in the year. We also provide full disclosure on the three most prospective assets in the current Nigerian mini bid round.
We invite you to become a paying subscriber of our monthly harvest and walk through a number of operational events that will run through the year -from seismic activity through drilling count to oil field construction and FID issues. Our theme is Who Is Doing What and Where in 2023?
The Africa Oil+Gas Report is the primer of the hydrocarbon industry on the continent. It is the market leader in local contextualizing of global developments and policy issues and is the go-to medium for decision makers, whether they be international corporations or local entrepreneurs, technical enterprises or financing institutions. Published by the Festac News Press Limited since 2001, AOGR is a paid subscription, monthly hard copy and e-copy publication delivered around the world. Its website remains www.africaoilgasreport.com, and the contact email address is info@africaoilgasreport.com. Contact telephone numbers in the West African regional headquarters in Lagos are +2348124374087, +2348130733523, +2347062420127, +2348036525979, +2348023902519.
–Editor
