Staff Reporter

The exploration of oil and gas at Cabora Bassa basin in Muzarabani by the Australian oil and gas firm, Invictus Energy (IE), is expected to commence in May 2022, a contact within the company has said.

According to the contact, the company is currently in the process of importing exploration drill rigs from Tanzania where the identified contractor, Exallo Drilling, was also conducting exploration for oil and gas.

“The exploration drill rigs are expected to be in the country by April 2022 paving way for the drilling exercise,” the contact revealed, adding that the long lead equipment, casing equipment and well heads were already in the country. He further revealed that transportation of exploration rigs is expected to cost US$3 million.

Invictus Energy is targeting to drill two exploration wells at an estimated cost of US$18 million each and the drilling exercise is expected to be completed by September 2022.

“The positivity of the exploration wells will inform basin development and drilling of additional wells to allow production,” added the contact.

According to the contact, the company had since completed a seismic study which is the surface study of the geological formations. He revealed that the desktop work estimated the existence of 9.25 trillion cubic feet of gas and 294 million barrels of condensate (a combination of oil and gas) of the resource. “The company reinterpreted the data which was previously collected by Mobil Corp in the 1990s.

The Muzarabani prospect is considered to be the largest undrilled conventional oil and gas prospect onshore Africa.

In 2020, the Zimbabwe Government classified it as one of the priority development projects which can contribute significantly to the country’s economy in pursuit of the vision of becoming a middle-income economy by 2030.