xAmplification

So when does Namibia actually start producing oil?

The short answer is 2029 to 2030. The longer answer involves a massive FPSO vessel sitting 290 kilometres offshore in 3,000 metres of water, a Final Investment Decision that TotalEnergies is targeting for late 2026, and a government that has publicly committed to this timeline on the record.

If Venus goes ahead on schedule, Namibia gets its first oil around 2030. Galp's Mopane project could follow in 2031-2032. By 2035, the country could be producing 500,000 barrels a day and ranking as Africa's fifth largest oil producer.

We put the full year-by-year timeline together with everything that needs to happen between now and 2030.

so here is a namibia oil thing that nobody is really talking about

you've heard about venus, mopane, graff. orange basin. totalenergies, galp, shell. that's the main story and it's a big one.

but chevron went and acquired 80% of a block in the walvis basin, which is directly north of the orange basin, separated by a geological ridge.

both basins have the same source rock. the walvis basin already had a well in 2013 that recovered actual light oil to surface. not a show. oil. 38 to 42 API.

chevron now has 9,500 square kilometres of 3D seismic over the block. they're planning to drill the gemsbok-1 well in 2026 or 2027.

if that well works, namibia doesn't just have one major oil province. it has two.

the full breakdown of the geology, the operators, the 2013 wells and what a discovery would change:

okay so here is a thing that does not get talked about enough

Shell drilled three oil discovery wells off the coast of Namibia. Graff in 2022, La Rona in 2023, Jonker in 2024. All found oil. All confirmed the same petroleum system.

Then in January 2025 they wrote down $400 million and said it was not commercially viable.

People acted like that meant the oil was not there. It is there. The issue is how fast it flows through the rock, and how much gas is mixed in with it.

Those are real problems but they are specific problems, not "there is nothing here" problems.

So now Shell has a new rig booked for April 2026 to test whether a different part of the block has better rock quality.

That is what the article covers. Worth a read if you follow energy or frontier market investing.

the namibia 6.2 billion barrel number is everywhere. here is the problem: nobody officially published it.

we actually went looking for the original source. a press release, a regulatory filing, an investor presentation with that exact figure. it does not exist. what happened is that media outlets in 2022 and 2023 combined in-place resource volumes with recoverable estimates across different fields without distinguishing between the two, arrived at a big round-ish number, and it got copied from article to article ever since.

what is actually verified from official operator announcements:

venus (totalenergies, pel 56): more than 2 billion barrels recoverable. that is a direct quote from the february 2022 press release.

mopane (galp, pel 83): the in-place estimate is over 10 billion barrels but the recoverable figure is around 800 million to 1.1 billion barrels.

shell orange basin (pel 39): roughly 500 million barrels or more combined across graff, la rona and jonker.

add it up and you get 3.4 to 4.2 billion barrels of confirmed recoverable oil. still enormous. still one of the biggest frontier discoveries of the past decade. but not 6.2 billion.

The Namibia oil numbers everyone keeps sharing are misleading. Here is what is actually real.

You have probably seen headlines claiming Namibia discovered 6 billion barrels or even 11 billion barrels.

Those figures are not exactly false but they measure something that almost nobody explains properly - in-place resources, not recoverable oil.

The verified recoverable estimates look like this:

Venus (TotalEnergies, FID Q4 2026) - ~2 billion barrels recoverable Mopane (Galp/TotalEnergies, FID 2028) - 800 million to 1.1 billion barrels recoverable Shell PEL 39 portfolio - ~500 million barrels recoverable Kudu (BW Energy) - ~190 million barrels of oil equivalent

Total: approximately 3.5 to 3.8 billion recoverable barrels.

That is still a genuinely enormous discovery and one of the largest frontier finds globally in the last decade.

The misleading numbers just make it harder to understand what is actually happening.

We wrote a complete fully cited guide to every major Namibian offshore field with correct ownership stakes, FID timelines, production targets, and economic context.

The gas field that sat untouched for 50 years just found oil.

Namibia's Kudu block was discovered by Chevron in 1974. That's the same year ABBA released Waterloo. It has never been developed.

BW Energy: which now holds 95% of the block, drilled the Kharas-1 appraisal well in late 2025.

They went down to 5,100 metres and found something nobody had confirmed before in this block: liquid hydrocarbons. Condensate and possibly light oil, sitting in fractured rock formations deep below the seabed.

The shallower zones hit dry gas, as expected. But the deeper targets revealed something genuinely new.

A migration front was observed. Hydrocarbons wetter than dry gas in the K1 interval. The geology of Kudu just got a lot more interesting.

What does this mean? A gas-only field needs a buyer for its gas: which is hard in frontier markets. But liquid hydrocarbons? You load them onto a tanker. You sell them internationally. The entire commercial logic of the project shifts.

BW Energy is targeting a Final Investment Decision in 2026. A follow-up appraisal well is planned to confirm commercial volumes.

Namibia is quietly becoming one of the most active offshore frontiers on earth in 2026. Venus. Mopane. Shell drilling in April. And now Kudu, the forgotten field, making a comeback.

Three Licences, One Strategy: How TotalEnergies Locked Up Namibia’s Core Orange Basin

TotalEnergies’ Namibia move isn’t just about Venus or Mopane in isolation: it’s about controlling the triangle of PEL 56, PEL 83 and PEL 91 by 2026.

An asset swap with Galp hands operatorship of Mopane (PEL 83) to TotalEnergies, while Galp comes into PEL 56 and 91 as a non‑operated partner; on the other two licences, TotalEnergies was already the operator with QatarEnergy, Impact and NAMCOR.

This piece unpacks why that three‑licence footprint matters—shared subsea and FPSOs, optimised drilling and logistics, a managed exploration pipeline, and how it underpins TotalEnergies’ description of Namibia as a “golden province” with room for multiple FIDs in the 2026–2028 window.

Venus FID 2026: The Decision That Makes (or Breaks) Namibia’s First‑Oil Timeline

Venus has gone from wildcat to center of gravity for Namibia’s entire oil story. TotalEnergies has pushed its decision back from a hoped‑for 2025 date, but now multiple sources: including Namibia’s petroleum commissioner, converge on a late‑2026 FID target for a ~150k–160k bpd FPSO and up to 40 subsea wells in 3,000 m water. First oil around 2030 is now the working assumption in most serious decks.

This deep‑dive walks through the remaining hurdles (keeping costs under ~20 USD/bbl, sharing capex with the state, environmental approvals), the project design, and what a green or red light in 2026 would mean for Namibia’s “golden province” narrative and for TotalEnergies’ growth plan.

Namibia Oil Blocks Map: How to Read the Orange–Walvis–Luderitz Chessboard

Namibia’s “next Guyana” narrative lives on a map: PEL 39, 56, 83, 85 in the Orange Basin, Chevron’s PEL 82/37 in Walvis, and early‑stage PEL 84 in Luderitz, plus a ring of junior‑held blocks like PEL 28 and 87 around the big discoveries.

This guide lays out where every major PEL sits, who runs it, what’s actually been found, and then ranks blocks by risk: from Tier‑1 Mopane/Venus/Graff, to Tier‑2 adjacency plays, to Tier‑3 frontier acreage that might deliver the next surprise.

It also gives a simple 4‑step framework (basin, operator quality, discovery status, investor access) so you can quickly judge whether a block belongs in a conservative, balanced or high‑beta portfolio.​

Namibia Oil Rush 2026: One Year, Every Basin in Play

Namibia’s offshore story is no longer just a couple of headline discoveries: it’s a full‑blown 2026 oil rush. Venus and Mopane are pushing along FID paths, Shell is back with a new 2026 drilling campaign in PEL 39, Chevron is lining up Walvis Basin activity, Rhino is stacking PEL 85 discoveries, and onshore, ReconAfrica is prepping Kavango for production tests.

This piece lays out how all those moves fit together, from farm‑ins and asset swaps to drilling calendars and first‑oil timing, and why 2026 might be the year Namibia’s oil narrative shifts from “maybe” to “inevitable” for a lot of investors.

Venus ESIA Filed: TotalEnergies Locks In a Key Namibia Milestone

Venus just passed one of its biggest non‑technical gates: TotalEnergies and partners have lodged the final ESIA + ESMP for the offshore development with Namibian authorities as of 12 January 2026, applying for an Environmental Clearance Certificate that’s mandatory before any full‑scale project execution. That submission caps off multiple rounds of public engagement in 2025 - Windhoek town‑halls, coastal hearings and document‑review periods run by SLR Namibia and Urban Dynamics, that surfaced everything from marine‑ecology worries to local‑jobs expectations.

This piece unpacks what the ESIA actually covers, why regulators look at the near‑shore logistics node as closely as the FPSO, and how this ESIA/ECC step fits into the Venus timeline toward a 2026 FID and a first‑phase plateau in the 150,000–180,000 bpd range.

Endless dashboards of “good news” don’t mean things are actually getting better.

Press releases are designed to look positive in isolation: a new round, a fresh partnership, a record metric.

But if you stack them against the company’s own history and financials, the pattern can flip from “up only” to “warning signs”.

Then you zoom out again and compare with direct peers – companies in the same space, chasing the same customers – and realize some are quietly delivering far better value with far less noise.

If you’re tired of being sold the headline, start reading the history, the numbers, and the competitive landscape.

“Golden Province”: How TotalEnergies Plans a Multi‑FPSO Hub in Namibia

When TotalEnergies’ CFO and deputy CFO start calling Namibia a “golden province”, they’re not being poetic, they’re flagging a plan to run multiple FPSOs off Venus and Mopane and pump roughly 350 kbopd from the Orange Basin in the early 2030s.

The idea: Venus gets a 150–160 kbopd FPSO first (FID mid‑2026, first oil 2030), Mopane follows with a ≥200 kbopd FPSO after a 2028 FID, all built on a shared supply chain and subsea/engineering ecosystem.

This piece breaks down what that hub looks like, why TotalEnergies traded equity with Galp instead of paying cash, how the Mopane carry works, and where prospects like Olympe fit into a regional portfolio of ~10 billion boe of exploration potential.

Volans‑1X: Rhino’s Third Straight PEL 85 Hit—and a Big Gas‑Condensate Play

Rhino’s Volans‑1X well has quietly turned PEL 85 into one of the most interesting private‑operator plays in the Orange Basin. Spudded 31 July 2025 with Deepsea Mira, it hit TD at 4,497.5 m, logged 26 m of net pay in an Upper Cretaceous reservoir, and then flowed ~33 MMscf/d gas plus ~5,300 bbl/d condensate per day on test, high deliverability, rich liquids, and no water.

This deep‑dive shows how Volans builds on Sagittarius‑1X and particularly Capricornus‑1X (11,000+ bbl/d light oil, 38 m net pay) to suggest a connected fairway; unpacks the JV structure (Rhino/Azule/NAMCOR/Korres); and looks at what kind of gas‑condensate + oil hub you could justify if appraisal confirms scale across PEL 85.

Namibia’s 2026 Local Content Pivot: “A Must, Not an Option”

While big FPSO headlines grab attention, Namibia is doing the quiet, hard thing: locking local content into law before first oil ever flows.

The Cabinet‑approved National Upstream Local Content Policy and a 2025/26 Petroleum Amendment Bill together create a framework where IOCs must submit Local Content Plans, prioritise Namibian firms, train and promote Namibians, and report on it, or risk non‑compliance.​

This piece breaks down what Maggy Shino means when she says local content is “a must and not an option,” how the new Upstream Petroleum Unit will centralise oversight in the Presidency, and what kind of ownership thresholds, SME‑support tools and reporting obligations companies will face from 2026 onward.​

Kavango West‑1X: ReconAfrica’s Q1 2026 “Proof or Bust” Test

ReconAfrica’s Kavango story is hitting its make‑or‑break phase: Kavango West‑1X has logged about 400 m of gross hydrocarbons in Otavi carbonates, with 64 m net pay and another 61 m of deeper oil and gas shows, and the company is skipping drill‑stem tests and going straight to a multi‑zone production test in Q1 2026.

Over 4–8 weeks, they’ll perforate multiple intervals, flow test them, and finally see if the Damara Fold Belt can deliver commercial rates or not.

This deep‑dive looks at what the logs tell us, why ReconAfrica raised C$20M to fund testing and appraisal planning, what an appraisal well would target, and how different flow‑rate outcomes could swing the entire onshore Namibia narrative.