Recent large oil discoveries in Namibia might help it treble its economy in the next two decades, according to the chairperson at the National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia (NAMCOR), who spoke to Bloomberg on Tuesday.

Shell and TotalEnergies have both announced discoveries offshore the African country since the beginning of the year. Shell stated earlier this year that the early results from the deep-water Graff-1 exploration well completed earlier this year were encouraging. In April, Shell made the second discovery in the Orange basin.

TotalEnergies announced in February that it had found a large discovery of light oil with associated gas on the Venus prospect. TotalEnergies must also continue with appraisal drilling operations in the area to analyse the discovery’s commercial possibilities.

Commenting then, the Senior Vice President Exploration at TotalEnergies, Kevin McLachlan, said: “This discovery offshore Namibia and the very promising initial results prove the potential of this play in the Orange Basin, on which TotalEnergies owns an important position both in Namibia and South Africa.”

In an interview with Bloomberg, NAMCOR’s chairperson, Jennifer Comalie, said: “More than 30 years of exploration and we finally we hit the jackpot.”

“At peak, these two discoveries could bring $5.6 billion to a very small economy.”

Namibia’s economy is presently estimated at roughly $11 billion dollars. Namibia might start producing in 2030 or perhaps earlier if evaluations for new discoveries back up initial predictions and, of course, majors commit to developing such discoveries as part of their goal to become net-zero energy firms by 2050.