oil in Naminibiahttps://www.namibtimes.net/forum/topics/finding-oil-offshore-namibia-what-the-experts-say?xg_source=activity Namib Times All Topics My Topics Add . Finding oil offshore Namibia, what the experts say Posted by Namib Times on May 11, 2014 at 5:34 in Comment is free View Topics . John Grobler - Investigative Journalist It is not exactly news that we have hydrocarbons off our coast: that has been confirmed since 1974 with the discovery of Kudu. That there is oil-bearing rock in the Walvis Basin is good news, but it also confirms the trend we see in Kudu of small and complex fields. Still, we hope they now have a better idea of where to look and can hit pay-dirt with the next hole. And even if they did find oil of viable quantities, the depth is a concern - they went deeper than the originally intended 4 170 m (or thereabouts) to find the oil-bearing rock. To extract oil at those depths is hugely risky and expensive: the Macondo blow-out in the Gulf of Mexico when drilling for Shell was at those depths. Killed off marine life all along the Gulf, and will take decades to clean up the disaster area at a cost of literally billions. The bigger risk is a political one: all the oil concessions are in private hands, except for two in which NAMCOR has a minority share. NAMCOR, btw, was created for the purpose of leading the search for oil in Namibia, but we'll leave that there for now. The oil business is a highly specialised one, and will all be off-shore. The jobs it will bring - TIG welding of high-pressure pipelines to operating remote equipment, etc - are all highly specialised. We do not (yet) have the skilled manpower to cope with one, so most jobs will go to foreigners initially. The real profits from these potential oil bonanzas if and when oil is discovered will be in private hands, with the average Namibian unlikely to see any real benefit other than a rapidly escalating cost of living, as the hot new money will cause a massive inflationary surge. The only bite we Namibians will get are taxes - but if the politicians and their friends own shares in the oil companies, they are more likely to favour their own dividends than the public purse. What is of however greater concern is the fact that many of the politicians and their friends on the private sector will be so rich that they simply would not even care about the nation - they will be so busy playing with their money and their new toys, the welfare of the nation is not exactly going to be of topmost concern. Oil can be the fuel for the engine that can lift Namibia and all of its people out of poverty - but if we do not watch out, it can also become the bullet-proof Hummer that run you and your children down in the dusty road of destiny one day. We need far more transparency in this sector, if we're to have a hand on the steering wheel as well. Kennedy Hamutenya, Diamond Commissioner in the Ministry of Mines and Energy A real entrepreneur never listens to detractors. They are persistent and keep their eyes on the ball. When everybody was looking for diamonds on our dunes on the coast someone kept looking at the sea and thinking, “if there are diamonds on these beach sands, they got to be out there on the seabed as well.” And now almost 70% of all our diamonds come from the ocean seafloor. Today someone says there is oil out there and all these skeptics and paranoid people come out of the woods spewing their negative vibes and venom all over the place. At least some people out there are spending money and doing some digging, while others are talking only. And that oil will one day build our country. Let's keep our hopes alive for a better future for Namibia and stop paying attention to skeptics.