Shell has announced an intensified appraisal drilling programme on Petroleum Exploration Licence 39 in Namibia’s Orange Basin, after the Merlin-1X well delivered permeability and porosity results that chief executive Wael Sawan called among the best observed on the acreage. The announcement, made alongside Shell’s second-quarter results on July 30, comes a year after the company impaired its Namibian assets when earlier wells could not be confirmed as commercially developable.
Since the first well was drilled on PEL 39 at the end of 2021, Shell and partners QatarEnergy and Namibia’s state hydrocarbons company have carried out successive drilling campaigns in the Orange Basin. Early wells revealed light oil, drawing strong international interest, but subsequent wells showed reservoir quality issues, including insufficient rock permeability and gas content too high for commercial development under the conditions identified, leading to the 2025 impairment.
Shell executive vice-president for exploration Eugene Okpere said the Merlin-1X results, delivered in partnership with the same Qatari and Namibian partners, showed notably better reservoir and fluid characteristics than earlier wells, prompting the intensified appraisal programme to clarify the resource’s size and commercial viability. The Orange Basin remains a major focus for the industry beyond Shell’s acreage, with TotalEnergies advancing a separate, more mature project toward final investment decision, targeting production by the end of the decade.
Source: namibiaoilandgas.com