Muzarabani oil and gas exploration on track

10 Mar, 2021 - 14:03 0 Views
Muzarabani oil and gas exploration on track

The Sunday News

Judith Phiri, Sunday News Reporter
AN Australian company, Invictus Energy Limited has said much progress has been made in its exploration programme for oil and gas in the Muzarabani area at the Cabora Bassa Basin.

The discovery of oil or gas has been seen to be able to reinvigorate the usually outbacks of predominantly rural Muzarabani and entire Dande/Zambezi valley, a dry region stretching from the foot of Mavuradonha range, transforming it into a hive of activity and bringing huge development potential, once the oil drilling starts.

In an online executive dialogue, Invictus Energy managing director Mr Scott Macmillan said the company has valuated all the data that was presented before them and they had identified some materials.

“We have valuated all the data that had been present in the country and that involved reprocessing and re-evaluating the data. We are happy with how that has gone and we have identified some material prospectively.

“The next step was to say we are prepared to go ahead with our exploration programme. However, looking forward the legislation that governs oil and gas in Zimbabwe has not been present so that needs to be in place before we commit tens and millions of dollars to the exploration programme,” said Mr Macmillan.

He also noted that the first step was to come back and revisit a project that had not been looked at for 30 years and then they decided whether it was worth pursuing beyond that.

Mr Macmillan also said that they have made good progress with the Government in getting the legislation in place, the agreements have been finalised and they were now waiting to sign them.

He added: “So we are on standby waiting for a call hopefully very soon from Government to sign our production sharing agreements which will put in place a stable and transparent legal and physical framework which will govern the project through the exploration appraisal development and production cycle. This is a long term investment for over decades hopefully.”

Mr Macmillan highlighted that for such investments there is commodity price cycle among that there is also the political cycles, hence for such projects to be able to withstand those different cycles, the laws and rules had to be put in place for the long term horizon so that investors could be able to plan effectively.

He also noted that investors when investing they would be looking for policy certainty, policy stability, ensuring that property rights are respected and having faith in the judicial system.

Mr Macmillan added: “Investors also look at the below ground geological potential and also the above ground investment environment and that is the political, social, markets as well as the legislation place for mining and resources. Among other issues obtaining mining titles swiftly and the size of the exploration are key.”

Meanwhile, at national level, the expectation is that the commercial discovery of oil and gas in Muzarabani would transform the economic fortunes of Zimbabwe through investment in key infrastructures like roads, job creation, health facilities, export earnings generation and revenue for central Government.

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