Geo Associates, who is about to drill in Zimbabwe what is believed to be the largest undrilled structure onshore Africa, has just committed to a second well this year.
The company is a subsidiary of Australian independent Invictus Energy and holds an 80% interest in SG 4571 over the Cabora Bassa Basin in northern Zimbabwe. The area had already been explored by Mobil back in the 1990s, when the American major spent $30m acquiring surface and subsurface data, including gravity surveys and over 1,600 line kilometres of 2D seismic data. Back then, the massive 200km2 Mzarabani anticline had been identified and mapped, believed to host a conventional gas target.
Last year, Polaris Natural Resources acquired 402.2km of 2D seismic over the license to support exploratory drilling by Exalo Drilling in June this year. The Mzarabani Prospect alone is estimated to contain 8.2 Tcf of gas and 250 million barrels of conventional gas / condensate (gross mean unrisked) across 5 horizons.
But Geo Associates has decided to bet even higher on Cabora Bassa and has just signed a Heads of Agreement with the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Zimbabwe (SWFZ) to amalgamate SG 4571 with SWFZ’s MSC003 Cabora Bassa South Reserved Area. As a result the licence area has increased sevenfold from 100,000 ha to 709,300ha andnow covers the entire Cabora Bassa Basin in Zimbabwe.
The company notably committed to increase its minimum work programme obligations for SG 4571’s second exploration period, which runs to June 2024. These include the acquisition of an additional 400km line of seismic data in the expanded area, and the drill of a second exploration well as part of the drilling campaign set to start in the middle of this year.
Full details on the Cabora Bassa Gas Project onshore Zimbabwe are available in the “Projects” section within your Hawilti+ research terminal.