Shell will kick-off a new exploration drilling drive in 2026 on its geologically complex licence in Namibia’s Orange basin in a fresh effort to find commercial volumes of oil, according to the supermajor’s top representative in the country.
However, Eduardo Rodriguez, Shell’s country chair, cautioned that upstream players and Namibia’s new government — which took office in March — need to build “trust” and “open dialogue” to overcome the many challenges of developing oil and gas resources in a frontier play.
Early this year the supermajor said that, despite making a bunch of oil discoveries in Petroleum Exploration Licence (PEL) 39 – including Graff and Jonker – none were deemed economic to develop, so it took a major write-off.