Essentially the success of the Orange Basin should not be measured solely by barrels produced or government revenues collected.
“Ultimately, the Orange Basin will not be judged only by the number of barrels produced,” said Industries, Mines and Energy Minister, Modestus Amutse, adding that “It will be judged by whether it strengthens energy security, builds Namibian capability, creates competitive businesses and leaves the country more resilient than it found it.”
Speaking on the subject of “The Orange Basin Opportunity” during the Offshore Northern Seas (ONS) event in Norway on Wednesday, Amutse said “Discovery tells us what lies beneath the seabed. Investability will be measured by what we build above it.”
As such the minister remained adamant that Namibia must move decisively beyond celebrating its string of offshore oil discoveries and focus on creating the institutions, infrastructure, skills and commercial certainty needed to turn the Orange Basin into a viable petroleum industry. Addressing ONS delegates during the week long event in Norway, Amutse said Namibia’s rapidly emerging petroleum sector had reached a critical juncture, with discoveries no longer merely representing geological potential but a portfolio of projects competing for global capital.
“Discovery is a geological event; investability is an institutional achievement,” Amutse said, drawing a sharp distinction between finding hydrocarbons and creating the conditions required to develop them commercially. His remarks come as Namibia seeks to transform major discoveries made since 2022 into producing assets, while competing with projects globally for the engineering capacity, financing and specialist expertise required for deep- and ultra-deepwater developments.
The minister pointed to the Graff and Venus discoveries in 2022, followed by Jonker, Mopane and subsequent exploration successes, as evidence that the Orange Basin has a functioning petroleum system with significant scale. “At Venus, the partners have defined a development concept centred on a floating production system of approximately 160 000 barrels per day and are working towards a potential final investment decision,” he said.
He also highlighted continued exploration and appraisal at Mopane and recent results in Petroleum Exploration Licence (PEL) 85, saying these developments had broadened understanding of the basin and demonstrated its diversity. But Minister Amutse cautioned against treating discoveries as guaranteed production.
“Not every well will succeed, and not every discovery will become a producing field,” he said. “These are capital-intensive projects in deep and ultra-deep water, competing globally for investment.”
The minister added that the central challenge for Namibia was therefore not simply attracting capital, but creating projects in which investors can properly assess, allocate and price risk. “Investability does not mean the absence of risk. It means that risk is understood, allocated, managed and priced,” he said.
Amutse further argued that Namibia’s competitive proposition rests on four pillars: political and legal stability, capable institutions, commercial realism and shared value. He emphasised that Namibia’s constitutional democracy, rule of law, investment protections and ability to repatriate profits were important foundations for international investors. At the same time, Amutse said Namibia was strengthening institutional coordination as the petroleum sector moved from exploration towards development.
“The Upstream Petroleum Unit in the Presidency strengthens coordination and focus as the sector moves towards development,” the minister said, adding that government was modernising the legal framework while maintaining transparency and accountability.
Perhaps more importantly for local businesses, Amutse placed Namibia’s recently approved National Upstream Petroleum Local Content Policy at the centre of the country’s strategy to ensure that the oil boom does not become another enclave industry. The policy is intended to create opportunities for Namibians through jobs, procurement, enterprise development, skills and technology transfer.
“For Namibia, the question is therefore not simply: how much oil may lie beneath our waters?” he said. “The more important question is: how does this resource create value above the ground, in Namibian skills, businesses, ports, infrastructure, public services and households?”
Petroleum ecosystem
That shift, Amutse stated, requires Namibia to build an entire ecosystem around petroleum production rather than waiting for first oil before developing local capacity. He identified marine and logistics services, engineering, environmental science, training and research, as well as reliable energy, water and transport infrastructure, as critical components of that ecosystem. Amutse nevertheless acknowledged that Namibia cannot immediately localise every component of a sophisticated offshore petroleum industry.
“Namibia will not localise every component from the first day, and it should not pretend that it can,” he said. “But local participation must deepen as the industry matures, and early investment in people and institutions must begin before first production – not after it.”
The minister also sought to counter concerns that developing Namibia’s petroleum resources would necessarily undermine its ambitions around renewable energy and decarbonisation. “For Namibia, a just transition must be just in the context in which it takes place,” he said, noting that the country was still expanding electricity access, building industries and developing productive capacity.
“The energy transition cannot be a choice between development and decarbonisation. It must be the means through which we achieve both.”
Managed properly, he said, petroleum revenues and capabilities could help finance a broader economic transformation, including renewable energy, green industries and critical-mineral value chains. Amutse also challenged what he described as a tendency to treat Africa as a single investment-risk category.
“Perception becomes a problem when it treats an entire continent as one category and ignores the commercial reality of individual countries and projects,” he said.
Namibia, Amutse noted, offers investors a stable Atlantic location, serious international operators, an increasingly well-understood basin and a government seeking to learn from established petroleum jurisdictions such as Norway. Yet he stressed that Namibia cannot assume that its discoveries automatically guarantee success.
“The discoveries have given us an opportunity, not an entitlement,” Amutse said. “Investability must still be earned through competence, consistency and trust,” said the minister.
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