Crown Energy said Thursday it would withdraw from the joint venture operating the Block 2B offshore South Africa after disappointing results of the Gazania-1 exploration well drilled in 2022.
The Gazania-1 well was spudded in October 2022, using the Island Innovator semi-submersible drilling.
The Gazania-1 well was drilled in about 150 meters of water, 25 kilometers offshore the Northern Cape in the Orange Basin, and targeted a gross prospective resource of over 300 million barrels of light oil across multiple zones.
Eco Atlantic, the operator of the offshore block, said in November the well had reached a target depth of 2,360 meters but did not show evidence of commercial hydrocarbons.
The JV partnership in respect of Block 2B comprises Eco Atlantic (50% WI and Operator), Africa Energy Corp (27.5% WI), Panoro 2B Limited, a subsidiary of Panoro Energy ASA (12.5% WI), and Crown Energy AB (10% WI).
Crown Energy said Thursday it had sent a withdrawal letter to the joint venture, meaning that the other owners will take over Crown’s 10% in the project.
"This will not have any economic consequences for Crown Energy as Crown has already impaired the value of this asset," Crown said.
Yoav Ben-Eli, CEO of Crown Energy: "We have decided to change Crown's strategy from oil and gas into sustainable businesses such as MedTech. To divest the South African holding is logical from both economic and strategic purposes.”
The Orange Basin straddles the offshore waters of Namibia and South Africa, where major discoveries on both the Graff-1 well, drilled by Shell, and the Venus-1 well, drilled by TotalEnergies, have recently been announced.