Chevron Renews Appetite for Africa Exploration

Chevron is turning to Africa to restock its exploration hopper. The supermajor has signed up for blocks in Angola, Namibia and Equatorial Guinea in recent months, for a mix of frontier and infrastructure-led exploration and some gas development. The move is part of the broader trend in which international oil companies (IOC) are expanding exploration in the deep and ultra-deep waters on Africa’s side of the Atlantic basin — while divesting onshore assets laden with security risks and potential environmental liabilities or sub-economic operations. The latest move saw Chevron nab Blocks 6 and 11 offshore Equatorial Guinea — from which Exxon pulled out earlier this year, leaving an undeveloped discovery on Block 6. The blocks are located near the Zafiro field and its aging pipeline infrastructure. Gas is the main driver for Chevron, which ditched earlier plans to sell the Equatorial Guinean assets that came with the 2020 acquisition of Noble Energy, including stakes in the oil and gas-rich Aseng field and Yolanda gas field and in the Alen gas condensate field. In Angola, where Chevron’s subsidiary Cabinda Gulf Oil Company signed risk service contracts for ultra-deepwater Blocks 49 and 50 in late June, Chevron is taking a punt on Angola's western end of the lower Congo Basin, where TotalEnergies reported a dry hole back in 2022. In Namibia, Chevron stuck its neck out in April, when it took an 80% stake in Namibia’s Walvis Basin Petroleum Exploration License (PEL) 82, which is under-explored even by frontier Namibia’s standards. It is adding to a similar-sized stake in PEL 90 where Chevron is acquiring seismic just north of Total’s Venus discovery.