The Energy Sector in Namibia 2025

This report on the petroleum and gas industries in Namibia includes information on oil and gas exploration and petroleum products, providing comprehensive information on the number of licences and service stations, major discoveries, consumption and prices. There is information on notable players and corporate actions, drilling progress and developments. The report includes profiles of 17 companies such as major global players Galp Energia, TotalEnergies and Shell, that are exploring onshore and offshore, state-owned company National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia (Namcor), which has a stake of at least 10% in every licence, and petroleum companies such as Puma Energy and Vivi Energy.

Introduction

• After a number of large oil and gas discoveries in the past few years, Namibia has become an exploration hotspot. 
• Numerous companies, including multinational oil companies are involved in exploration for oil and gas onshore and offshore.
• Exploration activities have already contributed to economic growth. 
• Namibia could become the fifth-largest oil producer in Africa by the middle of the next decade. 
• However, distance from shore and water depth, high natural gas percentages in reservoirs, and low rock permeability present challenges.

Challenges

• All oil discoveries found so far have a high percentage of natural gas, which complicates, and could delay, oil production.
• Fuel wholesalers are increasingly using trucks to transport fuel due to a decline in the performance of TransNamib, the state-owned railway operator.
• In some wells, low rock permeability affects the extraction of oil and gas.
• Some of the oil wells are located hundreds of kilometres from shore in water depths of up to 3,000m. It will be expensive and technically challenging to produce oil from these wells.

Opportunities

• Apart from the Orange and Kavango basins, the underexplored Lüderitz, Namibe and Walvis offshore basins and Nama and Owambo onshore basins are also believed to contain oil and gas.
• The Namibian Competition Commission’s instruction to Vivo Energy to divest of 58 Shell and Engen service stations creates opportunities for other fuel wholesalers to supply fuel to these service stations, and for companies to buy service stations.

Outlook

• Significant volumes of oil will continue to be consumed for several decades to come, and new oil fields need to be developed to meet demand and to replace fields that will soon stop producing. 
• The establishment of one floating production, storage and offloading facility could create jobs and contribute about 1% per year to GDP growth during construction and around 5.8% per annum in the oil production phase. 
• Rising demand for petroleum products over the next few years is expected to be driven largely by increased air travel and higher demand for plastics.
• The Namibian Competition Commission’s instruction to Vivo Energy to divest of service stations by May 2025 creates opportunities for fuel wholesalers to supply fuel, and for companies to buy service stations. 
• The consumption of petroleum products in Namibia is expected to grow steadily. 
• Namibia should produce enough natural gas in the future to generate part of its electricity consumption through the planned gas-fired power station.

Trends

• Fuel wholesalers are increasingly using trucks to transport fuel.
• Most fuel retailers are expanding their service station networks.
• There is increasing interest in oil and gas exploration.