Invictus impressed with milestones
AUSTRALIA oil and gas exploration firm, Invictus Energy is basking in the glory of milestones posted in the quarter to December setting a strong pathway towards development.
The successes are headlined by the two gas discoveries from Mukuyu-2 in Upper and Lower Angwa formations and signing of a gas supply memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Mbuyu Energy for the latter’s proposed 500-megawatt (MW) gas-to-power project.
Further to that, Wood Mackenzie, a global insight business for renewables, energy and natural resources classified the discoveries as the second largest made in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2023 behind Shell’s Jonker-1 discovery in the Orange Basin in Namibia.
In an update, the firm noted that during the quarter under review, it declared two material discoveries after recovering a total of 15 down-hole gas-condensate samples from both the Upper and Lower Angwa targets from the Mukuyu-2 drilling campaign, with a combined preliminary net pay of 34,9 million.
This marked one of the most significant developments in the onshore southern Africa oil and gas industry for decades, it said.
The firm is on record indicating that the country could be sitting on more than 5,5 billion barrels of oil.
A barrel of oil equivalent (boe) is a term used to summarise the amount of energy that is equivalent to the amount of energy found in a barrel of crude oil.
It said the project is one of the largest oil and gas exploration prospects to be drilled globally last year and if successful, could be transformative for the company and Zimbabwe.
In 2020, the Government classified the Muzarabani project as one of the priority development projects, which can provide a significant economic benefit to the economy in pursuit of an upper middle-income economy by 2030.
In the same quarter, Invictus and Mbuyu Energy signed an updated gas sales MoU for the supply of gas for a 500MW gas to power project.
Under the MoU, Invictus would supply gas to Mbuyu to the power project plant, which can be expanded up to 1 000MW in the future with a forecast total demand of 1,4 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of natural gas required over 20 years.
The updated MoU is built on the previous MoU signed in December 2019 with Tatanga Energy. The MoU is a precursor to the negotiation of a full long-term gas sale agreement (GSA) to supply sufficient gas to power the proposed plant.
The company estimates the Mukuyu fields to hold 34,9 trillion cubic feet of condensate gas.
Condensate gases are used for power generation and manufacture of products such as petrol (gasoline), jet fuel, diesel and heating fuels, among other uses.
The discovery of gas is expected to drive Zimbabwe’s economic growth, export earnings and Government revenue, create new jobs and downstream industries among other positive spin-offs.
During the quarter, Invictus successfully raised US$15 million through a private placement to new and existing sophisticated and institutional investors.-chronicle
