JOHANNESBURG — The recent announcement by energy company TOTAL that it had discovered a major oil and gas find off of South Africa’s southern coast sparked a lot of excitement. There’s been talk that the find contains up to 1bn barrels and economists have already started calculating the potential economic benefit to the country. But while the discovery is exciting and there’s the further prospect of more oil and gas being found in that part of the ocean, it could still take almost a decade before any production starts. This is according to Adewale Fayemi, who is the MD of Exploration & Production in SA for energy company TOTAL. In an interview with us at BizNews, Fayemi explained what exactly the find could entail in years to come. – Gareth van Zyl
Joining me to talk about SA’s latest major oil and gas find is Adewale Fayemi, who is the MD of Exploration & Production in SA for energy company TOTAL. Adewale, thank you for joining us.
Yes, thank you and good afternoon.
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Now, this latest discovery just South of the Southern Cape, dubbed Brulpadda caught a lot of peoples’ imaginations last week. We’ve seen a lot of estimates being thrown around of there being one billion barrels and enough oil to supply SA’s refineries for almost four years. How big is this find on a global scale?
I think, at this point in time, we’re still analysing the data that we’ve got from the drill of the well. So, we will only be able to say the extent or the volume that’s been discovered with this well after the studies and analysis when the decisions have been concluded. We took the core samples from the well. We’ve taken a lot of data. We took the fuel sample, so all of these things need to be carefully analysed and updated before we can say this is the volume. For your information as well, it’s only the fourth well drilled within the block, so what we’ve seen, what we encountered there gives us more confidence to drill more wells on the prospects that have been identified. So, basically, what we have today is enough to tell us that yes, we can proceed with all the subsequent drilling operations to cover the block. For this, we will be acquiring 3D seismic in the next three months, that should start in March, for over two months and we will continue activities. So, the volume, right now, I think it’s a bit premature to say this is the quantity that is there.
It sounds like you’re still very much in the discovery phase. How long do you think that this phase will take and how long could it be before we see any kind of potential drilling going on there?
Again, I think the whole excitement about the discovery is the fact that it’s a new frontier that has been opened. It falls in SA so it tells the whole world that okay, there’s another oil and gas province that’s about to be opened up. I think that’s real excitement and that more wells will have to be drilled and then when we drill more wells we can say, okay yes, from this block we have enough resources to develop. So, it’s only after then that you’re looking at the development strategy or a development plan. So, really, we’re just at the starting point.
So it could be years?
Definitely, from now to start production will be years, clearly. It’s deep offshore. It’s highly technologically driven. You also know that it’s also a very harsh undercurrent. So, it’s not a very simple environment to operate. So, for then, we’ll drill the oil successfully, safely without endangering anybody so, that’s good and we’re confident that yes, we can drill more wells. If we have enough resources to go into development: we are also confident that we’ll be able to do it. Just for your information, a typical development of deep offshore from the first find to the start of production, it’s not less than 8 years.
Just to clarify things because I think it’s been referred to as an oil and gas find. Now, for me, those are two different things so, has both oil and gas been found there? What’s the interrelationship between the two?
We always say, oil and gas – they are both petroleum, okay. Or otherwise called hydrocarbon. What we’ve discovered and what is significant is what we call the gas condensate, which means gas with some liquid hydrocarbon so, that’s what it is. What you’re seeing outside as oil that is sold and all that is basically a product coming out of the refinery of the petroleum.
Yes, because in Mozambique there’s been big gas finds and that almost heads into a different direction there?
You can have gas alone, which is normally when you have oil, you have gas. Then you can also have gas that is with some traces of oil in it. So, what you have in Mozambique is basically just gas alone. What we’re talking about here [with Brulpadda] is gas condensate, which means gas with some liquid hydrocarbons with it. But I will say, the largest and most significant fact is the gas.
So in terms of how difficult it is to potentially extract from that part of the ocean, I’ve heard stories about the waters being very choppy out there. How difficult is it and is the technology around to be able to extract?
There are other harsh environments in the world where we have operations and drilling is taking place, especially in the North Sea. But what we have done with this drilling is, yes, a lot of engineering studies are done. A lot of improvement on the rig – a lot of modifications are tried out on the rig and we’re happy that, yes, with all that we did, in terms of engineering and design, to be able to drill in this environment that everything worked well. The drilling worked successfully. So, we’re sure that going forward, if we go to the development stage also, there’s a lot of engineering people involved and TOTAL as a Group – innovation is in there so, we’ll be able to do what we need to do there, safely and making sure that… without impact to the environment.
A lot of people are going to be asking, what kind of environmental impact that type of drilling actually has. I guess it is a bit further away from the coast, as such, but could it have a damaging impact on the environment and the sea life around there?
We do have a very robust environmental management plan, which was developed and approved by the government, which was presented to the stakeholders. Then all the parties concerned were really convinced that this is a robust plan. This is what we have done and this is what we have implemented for this first well and going forward, we will always respect that. But I was saying that as a Group, I don’t know if you’ve got that. I mean, safety is our priority and our core value at TOTAL so, we won’t embark on an operation if we are not totally convinced that we can do it safely or with zero or minimal impact to the environment.
Do you think that there’s going to be an oil rush in this part of the world?  Will there be other companies that will carry out explorations? How does that impact TOTAL, because you’ve been the first to really discover oil now, how does that whole dynamic work?
Well, I think you have other companies that do have their blocks. I think they have their work programme as we do. I think what TOTAL has demonstrated is we saw the potential, we believed it in it, even though the environment is very harsh but we went all out to do it and we’ve done it. That means it can be done, so I think it’s an encouragement clearly, to the industry that yes, okay, there is potential here. So, I think a lot of the other companies who are already in the country will definitely ramp up their activities. For us, we have our own plan, going forward.
Adewale, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today.
Thank you very much.
