Study boosts Pancontinental’s oil hunt at expanded Oryx prospect

A study has upgraded the prospective resource at Pancontinental Energy’s Oryx prospect by 53% to 815MMbbl while boosting success odds to 26.2%.

Oryx now has a larger prospective resource and chance of success. Pic: Getty Images

• Pancontinental study upgrades net Oryx prospective resource by 53% to 815MMbbl of oil

• Quantitative interpretation study also increases chance of success from 22.5% to 26.2%

• Calypso and Addax Channel leads incorporated into Oryx as a single well; PCL can test all three targets

Special Report: Pancontinental Energy has increased both the potential scale and geological chance of successfully finding oil at its PEL 87 project in the Orange Basin offshore Namibia.

An ongoing quantitative interpretation study carried out by the company indicated the potential for a higher net-to-gross reservoir system at the Oryx prospect than previously estimated.

It also incorporated the Calypso and Addax Channel leads into Oryx as it was determined all three could be effectively tested by a single exploration well.

This led Pancontinental Energy (ASX:PCL) to upgrade best case (2U) prospective resources at Oryx up from 534 million barrels (MMbbl) of oil to 815MMbbl net of its 75% stake in PEL 87.

It also increased the geological chance of success – the likelihood of making a commercial oil discovery – up from 22.5% to 26.2%.

Prospective resources are typically defined as the potentially recoverable amount of hydrocarbons from undiscovered accumulations, which is to say they are estimated from seismic surveys and require drilling to actually confirm oil is present.

Chief executive officer Iain Smith said the upgrade meant the company had pinpointed a single well location at Oryx that offers oil potential at three discrete intervals for a combined 2.5 billion barrels of high case (3U) prospective resource.

Map of PEL 87. Pic: Pancontinental Energy

On trend with major discoveries

The 10,970km2 PEL 87 project off the coast of southern Namibia is on trend with a number of very significant hydrocarbon discoveries that have been made in recent times by Galp Energia, TotalEnergies and Shell.

It was awarded to PCL in 2018 for up to three terms over eight years and may be converted into a production licence under pre-agreed terms.

PEL 87 is presently within the first renewal exploration period that commenced on January 23 2024 and will end January 22 2026.

This period includes an associated work commitment to drill one exploration well or, if a drillable prospect is not identified, acquire either 500km2 of 3D seismic data or 1000 line kilometres of 2D seismic data.

The project hosts several prospects and leads of which Oryx is recognised as being both the largest and the one with highest chance of success.

Others include Hyrax, Xerux, Oryx North, Addax Fan and Addax South that collective host 2U prospective resources net to PCL of 2.27 billion barrels of oil.

Meanwhile, the ongoing QI screening has recently resulted in mapping of an additional prospective feature, external to the Saturn Complex.

This Phoebe West lead is interpreted as an Albian-to-Aptian basinal turbidite fan feature fed by a long-lived northern channel clastic bypass depositional system.

That said, interpretation is ongoing at this time.

This article was developed in collaboration with Pancontinental Energy, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.

Originally published as Study boosts Pancontinental’s oil hunt at expanded Oryx prospect