Muzarabani oil, gas prospects promising 

Source: Muzarabani oil, gas prospects promising | The Herald

Some of the equipment brought into the country by Invictus Energy, through Polaris Natural Resources, for the Muzarabani seismic survey

Golden Sibanda
Invictus Energy, the Australian firm exploring for oil and gas in Zimbabwe, has wrapped up its 2D (2 dimension) seismic programme in Muzarabani, Mashonaland Central Province.

The company said the data gathered had already started providing insights into the oil and gas potential of the Cabora Bassa Basin of Zimbabwe.

Seismic, an exploration process of gathering subsurface vibrations using advanced technology to determine the existence of hydro-carbons, will enable Invictus to choose precise locations for its oil or gas exploration wells.

This comes as the oil and gas exploration junior expects to commence its high impact basin drilling within the first quarter of next year.

The Australian firm awarded the contract for the seismic campaign to Canadian firm Polaris Natural Resources, which has extensive experience in the area in Africa.

The company acquired 839km of high resolution 2D seismic data, 402km in its Special Grant 4571 licence and another 437km of contiguous data in an existing application area.

This is well in excess of Invictus Energy’s minimum work programme obligations of 300km of 2D seismic for the current licence period, which runs to June 2024.

“The completion of the CB21 seismic survey is a significant milestone for the company in our exploration programme in the Cabora Bassa Basin,” Invictus Energy managing director Scott Macmillan said.

“The quality of the high-resolution seismic data we have acquired is excellent and provides great insights into the petroleum potential of the basin.”

He added that processing and interpretation of the seismic data was ongoing and is expected to enable the company to identify and mature additional prospects and leads.

“The better imaging over the giant Muzarabani structure is very encouraging and once the interpretation of the full dataset is completed, we expect to refine the location for the basin opening Muzarabani-1 well which is scheduled to be drilled in 1H 2022,” Macmillan explained.

The Muzarabani prospect is considered to be the largest undrilled conventional oil and gas prospect onshore Africa and could host prospective resources of about 9,25 trillion cubic feet of gas and 294 million barrels of condensate.

Invictus has already signed a Petroleum Exploration Development and Production Agreement (PEDPA) with the Government of Zimbabwe.

The PEDPA provides the framework for the progression of the Cabora Bassa project through exploration, appraisal, development and production phases of the project, as well as the rights and obligations of each party over the project life cycle.

President Mnangagwa, the guest of honour at the signing of the PEDPA, said the agreement represented major strides in Zimbabwe’s efforts to tap into its oil and gas deposits, which is a new territory in the country’s mining sector.

He added that other potential benefits of an oil and gas discovery included electricity generation, production of liquid petroleum, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), fertiliser production and petrochemicals.

President Mnangagwa said the signing of the PEDPA with Geo-Associates, (Invictus’ 80 percent owned subsidiary, which owns the Muzarabani prospect), was testimony to the Government’s commitment to open up the economy to investment as well as engage and re-engage the global community to do business in Zimbabwe.