Major international oil companies including Chevron and TotalEnergies are significantly expanding their exploration footprint in West and Southern Africa as compelling geology, regulatory reforms, and the need to restock assets drive a hunt for discoveries comparable to Brazil’s prolific offshore basins. Companies are restocking their oil and gas portfolios given prospects for fossil fuel demand to remain higher for longer than predicted just a few years ago.
David Thomson, vice president of Sub-Saharan Upstream at Welligence energy analytics, noted that major oil companies are clearly in an acreage reload phase and have been able to secure large acreage positions across the region. With growth in US shale production topping out, other regions are drawing fresh attention, including West and Southern Africa. Shell has returned to offshore Angola after a 20-year absence, demonstrating renewed confidence in the region’s potential.
Of the oil and gas discovered globally since 2020, approximately 11 percent, or about 8.7 billion barrels of oil equivalent, has been found along West Africa, with most discoveries being oil. According to Justin Cochrane, African upstream regional research director for S&P Global Commodity Insights, the region holds around 14 percent of the liquids discovered since 2020, representing some 5.6 billion barrels.
France’s TotalEnergies has been the most active international player, finalizing new production-sharing contracts in Nigeria, Congo Brazzaville, and Liberia last September. Angola, sub-Saharan Africa’s second largest oil producer, introduced a presidential decree in late 2024 that included reforms and tax cuts aimed at making mature blocks more investible and spurring exploration. Angola also quit the OPEC group of oil-producing countries about a year earlier, freeing itself from output constraints.
Shell announced last month that new exploration in Angola is important to sustaining production into the 2030s as it revealed a deal to buy stakes in two undeveloped offshore blocks. The Eni-BP joint venture Azule Energy has drilled Angola’s first gas-specific exploration well and found potentially more than one trillion cubic feet of gas and up to 100 million barrels of condensate. US major Chevron entered the promising MSGBC basin covering Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Bissau, and Conakry when it added two blocks off Guinea-Bissau in November.
Liz Schwarze, Chevron’s vice president for exploration, emphasized that the new blocks add to a great suite of exploration assets the company holds up and down the coast in West Africa, describing it as a super prolific area. Similarities between the geology of Africa’s underexplored west coast and huge productive basins on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean hold the promise of massive new discoveries. Gil Holzman, chief executive of Canada’s Eco Atlantic Oil & Gas, described Africa and South America as true Atlantic twins bound by a shared geological history, noting that multiple major discoveries along the West African margin directly mirror successes in eastern South America, particularly offshore Brazil.
Namibia has recorded the region’s most discovered and recoverable resources at 6.2 billion barrels of oil equivalent, roughly five times the total for second-ranked Ivory Coast and ahead of South Africa, Angola, and Nigeria. In Namibia’s Orange Basin, one of the world’s hottest exploration zones, joint venture Azule Energy in partnership with operator Rhino Resources made three offshore hydrocarbon discoveries last year as they compete with TotalEnergies in a race to first oil. Privately held African explorer Rhino Resources plans to drill an appraisal well on a Namibian prospect this year and take a flow test on another as it looks to fast-track development.
TotalEnergies is moving ahead with its Venus project in Namibia and has acquired a 40 percent stake in the Mopane mega discovery, estimated to hold at least 10 billion barrels. Namibia has seen an above-average success rate of more than 70 percent in drilling campaigns, though complex geology and technical deepwater challenges persist. TotalEnergies has flagged a high gas-to-oil ratio at its Venus project, while Shell was forced to take a $400 million writedown on an oil find off Namibia but maintains its commitment to further exploration in the region.
Source: bairdmaritime.com