The Port of Walvis Bay is days away from receiving one of Namibia’s most important project cargo shipments - a drilling rig from the Port of Houston in the USA.
Bound for exploratory work in the Kavango Basin in the north-east of the country, it will be transported by Reconnaissance Energy Africa (ReconAfrica) to a designated potential mining area about 50 kilometres south of the Kunene border with Angola and about 100 kilometres west of the Caprivi panhandle.
According to ReconAfrica, the Crown 750 rig is rated at 1000 horsepower and equipped with two Cat 540 horsepower diesel engines.
With a combined hook load of 440 000 pounds, the rig is rated to drill 12 000 vertical feet.
It left Houston in mid-November and should take about 28 days to complete its journey.
It’s not clear though exactly where it is at the moment and Freight News is trying to seek confirmation from Namport about when the rig is expected to dock in Walvis.
Meanwhile, environmentalists are applying pressure on investors to withdraw from funding ReconAfrica’s drilling efforts which they say are too close to the Okavango Basin, with fears mounting that drilling work could threaten the sensitive biodiversity of the region surrounding Africa’s only inland delta.
In September though Namibia’s ministry of mines and energy said the exploration activities would not cover the entire licence area and would be limited to areas situated about 80 kilometres south of the Okavango River, 40 kilometres from the boundary of the Khaudum National Park, and were more than 260 kilometres from the Okavango Delta in Botswana.
The ministry also stated that the approved areas where two stratographic wells would be drilled were not located in any conservancy.
“The potential footprint for this activity will only occur in the area that is not bigger than 250 x 250 metres around each well.
“The actual size of the wells that will be drilled is about 30 x 30 centimetres,” the ministry said.
It emphasised that the drilling was not on the banks of the river, that ReconAfrica’s work was only in an exploratory phase, and that should mining in the area get the green light, it would have to be done according to environmental impact assessment stipulations.
However, the Canadian company seems confident that its exploratory efforts will not be in vain.
It states on its website that it has licences for approximately 8.75 million contiguous acres over the entire deep Kavango Basin.
“We believe that the Kavango Basin is another world-class Permian Basin. It is estimated that the oil generated in the basin could be billions of barrels.”
Worldwide Geochemistry president Dan Jarvie said: “Given the nature of this basin and tremendous thickness, this is pretty much a no brainer. It will be productive and I’m expecting high-quality oil.”
