Coming down to the basins in southern Africa, Namibia hosts interesting hydrocarbon provinces that hold great promise for its upstream energy sector.
Namibia has four (4) offshore basins and four (4) onshore basins. Offshore and onshore basins are a matter of location. An onshore basin refers to the subsurface reserves of oil on land. An offshore basin refers to the subsurface reserves of oil in the sea (extracted from the seabed).?
Namibia’s offshore basins span an area of at least 800, 000 square kilometers. The water depth rises as high as 4000m and extends from Angola’s maritime border to the north down to South Africa’s maritime border in the south. These basins are
- the Orange Basin: It is part of a passive margin (a region of significantly lesser to zero tectonic activity) brought about by volcanic rifting. Volcanic rifting occurs when magma from volcanoes rises to occupy the gaps caused by huge land masses that slowly move away from each other. This passive margin lies south of the Walvis Volcanic Ridge along the southern South Atlantic coast, around the Namibia-South Africa border;
- the Walvis Basin: It lies in the Walvis Bay, Namibia’s largest coastal city;
- the Lüderitz Basin: It is around Lüderitz, another coastal town in southwestern Namibia. This basin has a “canyon” and “submarine fan system”. A canyon is a deep, narrow valley with steep sides that somewhat resembles a gorge. Canyons can be formed underwater. A submarine fan occurs when powerful underwater currents—turbidity currents—push very fine and smooth sediments down the slope of the seabed, forming a structure that resembles a fan; and
- and the Namibe Basin, which crosses the Namibia-Angola border.
Covering at least 400, 000 square kilometers of its region, Namibia’s onshore basins are
- Two Neoproterozoic/Early Cambrian Basins: Being Neoproterozoic and Early Cambrian, it means the ages of these two basins can be traced to about 1 billion years ago to 520 million years ago;
- the Owambo-Etosha Basin in northern Namibia. Primarily, the Owambo Basin extends from southern Angola to Namibia and includes a large expanse of ground covered in salt, namely the Etosha Pan; and
- the Nama Basin in southern Namibia, which is a peripheral foreland basin. A foreland basin forms close to mountain belts, groups of mountains that are similar in their forms and structures. They are similar in this manner because they were built from the same geological event, orogeny (the process of the Earth building its mountains).
Namibia is on the verge of incredible upstream transformation which needs to be accompanied with the development of its downstream sector. Intergovernmental and interregional collaborations between Namibia and other countries can be one pathway to kickstart the development of its petroleum industry.
