What we can see is that there’s a structural high before dipping down into the
Kavango Basin, so we are thinking the thickness is probably close to double in this section, maybe more, and higher temperatures.
I have a feeling that it’s more based on what I’ve seen. So we believe it’s a very thick shale and it’s at the optimal depth to get oil production.
See, everyone talks about the Eagle Ford, but unless you are in a sweet spot you have a hard time producing there. The sweet spot of the Eagle Ford has a 75% Kerogen conversion window, but if you move up to the 50% or 25% wells, those wells are not economic.
James Stafford: How would you compare the Kavango to the Eagle Ford?
Daniel Jarvie: Well the Kavango actually is quite different. It’s more like the Permian Basin, and that’s a big plus.
The Eagle Ford is marine carbonate source rock, and it averages 60% carbonate plus it is only about 220-250 ft thick. Kavango is dramatically different to that. From what we know so far, it’s more akin to the Permian basin, a marine shale that generates a high quality oil, and it is thick and heterogeneous system. I expect to find stacked pay zones throughout any source rock systems. There will likely be multiple source rocks by the way.
If you want to get a lot of oil out the system you love the heterogeneity. That’s one of the reasons the Permian works so well. It’s also another reason to be excited about Kavango.
James Stafford: If you prove this system up, what comes next?
Daniel Jarvie: Then it becomes phenomenally more interesting.
We will probably have some oil production shows and indications of where it is. We will be able to tell the thermal maturity and can expand it across the basin so we can high grade different prospects by their depth and burial history.
Right now we don’t have a good handle on that. The formation got laid down hundreds of millions of years ago but we don’t know what has happened to it since. And that’s what the first well will help with. And that will point us in the right direction