Written by Felix Njini | From The Southern Times

HRT Participacoes em Petroleo SA, the Brazilian oil explorer that failed to find commercially viable deposits in Namibia after drilling three wells, says it might secure partners at some of its 10 Namibian blocks before the end of the year.

“We are hopeful to find partners to provide us with finance to drill. We are looking at farming out at all our blocks and we have opened a data room in Houston,” Martin Thomas Davis, HRT Africa President said in an interview, in Windhoek.

“There have been serious contacts by a number of well-known companies, by the end of the year we would have made significant progress on this,” Davis said, on the side lines of an oil and gas conference organised by Rich Africa Consultancy.

HRT, which has 10 exploration blocks, one of the largest acreage offshore Namibia, made a sub-commercial discovery after drilling to a depth of 5.7 kilometres at Wingat-1, having failed to find crude at two other wells. HRT wants to drill its next prospect, Meerkat-1, but having sunk around US$300 million in three failed wells, the company says it will not go it alone on future drillings.

“It’s a risky business and cash intensive. Our plan is to minimise risk like most oil companies. We are merely following industry standards,” Thomas Davis said.

Basins in offshore Namibia are similar to passive margins basins in South Atlantic, Brazil, Angola, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, HRT geologist, Selma Usiku said.

HRT’s successful drilling campaign in Namibia, in which at least 19 wells have failed to find commercial deposits of crude, would depend on the company securing multiple partners and going as far as shedding majority stakes in some of its blocks.

Read more at The Southern Times