eBusiness Weekly
Africa Moyo
THE country could cut significantly its import bill if oil is confirmed in Muzarabani, industrialists have said.
Dairibord Zimbabwe Limited (DZL) chief executive officer Antony Mandiwanza said this to members of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Industry and Commerce on Wednesday during a tour of the milk processer’s Harare plant.
This comes as the country is spending a fortune on the importation of petroleum based polymers.
Polymers is made from granules.
The polymers is processed to make plastic bottles and plastic lids, which are used as containers for bottled water, cascade and others.
Mandiwanza said while the processing of the polymers is done locally, the country continues to lose a lot of money in their importation.
He reckons that the day the country starts extracting oil locally would see an end to the leakages of the scarce foreign currency through the importation of oil related products such as polymers.
Asked if DZL is doing anything to reduce the import bill, Mandiwanza said: “Yes indeed, we can do something locally and that which we can do locally, we are doing. We import what is called polymers, the petroleum based polymers, which is made from granules. That is what we import. Processing those polymers into a usable material such as the bottle and the lid is done in Zimbabwe.
“So indeed yes, there is a lot in terms of value adding the polymers that are imported into the country. We cannot have polymers in the country because these a petroleum based.
“I am hoping and praying the day we will discover our oil fields somewhere, we will be able to convert the black gold into the polymers . . . ”
Mandiwanza said the oil fields have been discovered, they will then begin to have a “full value addition that speaks to raw materials, conversion and the usage”.
Australian firm, Invictus Energy has indicated that; “Preliminary gravity data reprocessing confirms shallow basement trend associated with Muzarabani anticline and identifies further leads Invictus Energy Limited, is pleased to announce that the ongoing basin modelling study and geochemical studies confirm the oil potential of the Cabora Bassa Basin.”
Invictus Energy managing director Scott Macmillan added that the results of the company’s ongoing technical work are “extremely encouraging and are enhancing our understanding of the potential of our acreage in the Cabora Bassa Basin”.
“The basin modelling and source rock characterisation is one of the key pieces of work that significantly derisks the charge timing and availability to the Muzarabani Prospect and the wider basin as well.
“In addition, new processing techniques applied to the raw datasets that were not available 25 years ago are beginning to show additional structural detail in the basin that was not previously possible as indicated by the preliminary gravity processing results.
“Our technical work is continuing on this exciting project and we look forward to updating the market on our progress in due course as our work programme delivers results,” said Macmillan.
Invictus Energy further noted that the deep lacustrine (lake) source rock type in the Cabora Bassa Basin was not widely regarded 25 years ago as having significant oil generating potential.
Mobil carried out similar studies in the area and left, without making its results known.
The potential of the Muzarabani prospect was recently confirmed by an independent report by Netherland, Sewell and Associates, Inc. (NSAI).
NSAI said the prospect contains 3,9 Tcf (trillion cubic standard feet) of natural gas and 181 mmbbl (million barrels) of condensate, totalling 850 mmboe (million barrels of oil equivalent) prospective resource (gross mean unrisked basis) in the primary target (Upper Angwa Alternations Member) alone.
The size of the primary Upper Angwa target alone in Muzarabani prospect implies ‘‘giant’’ scale field potential.
Giant fields are conventional oil or gas fields with a recoverable reserve of 500 MMboe or more as, defined by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG).
