Galp maintains its expectation that by the end of the year it will find a partner with an “appetite” for the development of the oil exploration project in Namibia, an asset with high potential but which requires a large investment.
“We are looking for a highly robust partner from the point of view of execution capacity, with a reputation and an appetite to accelerate the development of the project”, stated Galp’s executive director, Nuno Bastos, responsible for the ‘upstream’ area, production and exploration of oil and natural gas, during a meeting with journalists.
The objective, he added, is “to reach ‘first oil’ [arranque da produção de petróleo] as quickly as possible” of the project, whose investment could reach between 10 and 12 billion euros. Nuno Bastos highlighted that “every month that we sit around waiting for others to do their analysis is wasted time”, adding that they are available to open up to half of the capital they hold in the project to partners.
Galp owns 80% of the PEL 83 block, with 10% belonging to the Namibian state oil company Namcor and 10% to a local private partner. The block, with an area of 10 thousand square kilometers — “the equivalent of 11% of the national territory” — has an estimated potential of 10 billion barrels of oil equivalent, according to company data.
“We are in an exploration and ‘appraisal’ phase [avaliação] and we will never be producing before 2030”, estimated the manager, who recalled that the development of oil projects “is a long-term process, with large risks and investments”.
Nuno Bastos highlighted that Galp is “proud” to have advanced alone to this stage, before going public with a new partner. “After drilling and showing the value of the asset, we entered a different league — today we have a much stronger position to negotiate,” he said.
Regarding the energy transition, the administrator considered that “it is increasingly consensual that it will take longer than expected”. “We had a war in Europe and strong issues of security of supply. It became clear that sustainability at all costs is not possible,” he stated.
For Nuno Bastos, the world now lives “in a logic of energetic additivity, not subtraction — all energy sources will be critical”.
The official reiterated that Galp will continue to invest in hydrogen, biofuels and renewable energy, financing these projects with the ‘cash flow’ generated by the ‘upstream’. “It is this cash generation that allows us to reinvest in decarbonization and pay dividends,” he stated.
Still, he regretted that public support in Portugal is limited when compared to that in Spain. “In hydrogen we had support of nine million euros and 11 million for HVO [biocombustível]. In Spain, identical projects received 150 to 165 million”, he highlighted.
Nuno Bastos concluded by arguing that Galp “has the capital, expertise and ambition to continue to grow upstream and sustain the energy transition over the coming years”.
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