How Namibia Pulled Ahead In Africa’s Hottest Offshore Oil Basin

Namibia is rapidly emerging as Africa’s next major oil producer while neighboring South Africa, which controls roughly two-thirds of the same Orange Basin petroleum province, remains years behind in developing essentially the same petroleum system. The Orange Basin, an offshore deepwater petroleum province spanning the Atlantic maritime border between the two countries, is estimated to contain more than 20 billion barrels of oil equivalent. Yet while Namibia has attracted a succession of world-class discoveries and moved rapidly toward commercial…