Africa New Energies The human side of exploration 1
. Why are we doing it? I was not to know it at the time, but a throw away comment on my first day of university, was to define the rest of my life. I asked my new roommate, Given Mkhabela what he was most looking forward to thinking he would talk about the new found freedom and the parties like the rest of us. His answer put it all into perspective - For the first time in my life I can study in my room under electric light. Given s quiet, steely determination remains an inspiration to me and I realized later that my mission in life was to help the 500 million Sub-Saharan Africans to get light for the first time, in the hope they use it as well as Given did. In the top picture, Given and me are reunited almost 25 years later. He is now a senior finance manager at one of South Africa s largest mining companies. As for me, if we find just 1/20 th of our prospective resource in Namibia, there will be enough gas for the 63% of Namibians who don t have electricity, to get it for the first time. 2
A little help from our friends The Nama Basin, where the Kalahari is situated, has always been a geologically plausible hydrocarbons environment, which is why Standard Oil, BP and Shell were actively exploring there in the 1960s. Sanctions and war meant that exploration stopped in the early 1970 s. In was within this context, that in 1986, this lady (picture on the left) got out of her house to see what the excitement was all about a drilling team was drilling a water bore hole and at 45 meters there were oil shows. In the confusion of war, this was never reported to the authorities. 27 years later, the Paramount Chief of the Herero s made an impassioned appeal to the whole community to come up with potential evidence to help Africa New Energies, our company. On her advice, we tested the soils around this well and it showed dramatically higher levels of paraffins in the soils, suggesting a live petroleum system. 3
Another tip In the same vein, Angelina, (the lady with the blue traditional headdress) informed us about a contaminated well on the edge of Toasis that was closed over 30 years ago. This potential seepage fits perfectly with the satellite images that suggest a major oil field on the northern edge of these pans. We are testing the soils around this well in the hope that we find more evidence of hydrocarbons seepage. If they are positive, we will have made more progress than a typical exploration company would, with many times the outlay. 4
Soil gas sampling Capturing soil gas samples using a probe to understand the levels of paraffins in the soils. ANE s innovation in the area of geochemistry involves using a combination of soil gas samples with iodine a reliable indicator of hydrocarbons, cross referencing it with satellite images, with ground truthing using this probe. With the help of highly resourceful members of the local community, such as Katz (pictured) in combination with in house developed software we are able to create tens of millions of datapoints, ground truthing them. 5
Working with the San people Meeting a member of the San community in the local shabeen on Friday night. We are engaging the San community to help with the surface exploration process. Their knowledge of the local vegetation and surface geology is almost mythical. 6
The salt pans With the team in a water bore hole over one of the over 200 ephemeral salt pans that we are increasingly showing holds the key to the paleodrainage microseepage that reveals the faults and structures that confine the Aminius field 7
Working in the field The rains came not too soon for the community riven by drought, but did bring about challenges in collecting data, the water in the low lying pans means that even modest rainfall causes flooding. The team working in the field away from the roads on the motor and quadbikes. 8
. And the wildlife Wildlife is sparse in the tribal areas, so is particularly rewarding when we find it to the right is a tortoise and a legavon (monitor lizard). What is more frightening is that there are snakes there. The team encountered a 15 foot mamba and I came across this deadly puff adder which was as thick as a man s arm. And then there is Harnas, an animal sanctuary where visitors can take a purring cheetah for a walk. 9
The drought A lack of rain literally means death in the Kalahari. In 2014, the region suffered the worst drought in 20 years, devastating livelihoods and killing the wildlife. The picture on the left is a legavon (monitor lizard) killed by the drought. 10
Permaculture ANE s response to the drought is to launch permaculture projects, to help green the vegetation and create new wetter microclimates, making the growing of vegetables possible for the first time. This one was championed by the late paramount chief, who kindly provided the land for it. 11
So far 260 people have helped with their capital, their skills and relationships to deploy 3 million towards our goal of universal electricity access first in Namibia and later in all of Sub-Saharan Africa. If you want to help us to break the world crowdsourcing record, while fundamentally changing the economics of hydrocarbons exploration, we would love to hear from you. info@africanewenergies.com 12