BACK
The Republic of Namibia had classified the Kunene #1 as a “tight hole”, meaning no information regarding the well could be released until such time as the Namibian government determined to make the information public. On July 21, 2009 the Ministry of Mines and Energy of Namibia released a Press Statement regarding Block 1711. The statement is as follows:
“In March 2006, Sintezneftegaz (70%) together with its co-venturers Energulf Resources Inc (10%), PetroSA (10%) and Namcor (7% carried interest) signed a Petroleum Agreement with the Government of the Republic of Namibia in connection with the exploration of oil and gas in block 1711. A local BEE group, Kunene Energy joined later with a 3% carried interest. The License Block is located in the northern part of the Namibian continental shelf and is part of Kwanza-Cameroon oil and gas bearing province. In the northern part of the province namely in northern and central basins of Angola (Cabinda, Kwanza) the proven oil and gas bearing reserves capacity are contained in the carbonate sediments of Albian age. The oil fields of Pakassa Formation in the lower Congo basin and Bento Formation in the Kwanza basin were chosen and used as analogues of the Cretaceous carbonate reservoirs. Furthermore additional seismic reinterpretation and reprocessing over the Kunene and Hartman prospects have demonstrated that both these structures can be correlated with the Apto-Albian sediments of the South West African margin.
The operator and the co-venturers applied extreme effort and dedication to the evaluation of oil and gas in the license block. The site for the Kunene- 1 exploratory well was determined on the basis of thereprocessed and reinterpreted 2000 km of 2D seismic and 685km² of 3D seismic data that was originally acquired by Vanco. The well was spudded in June 2008 and drilled to a total depth 5052 meters below mean sealevel as per the Agreement with the Namibian Government. The Kunene-1 well is the first ever well to be drilled in Block 1711 over the Kunene prospect of the Namibe basin, testing a large 4 way dip structural closure.