Oz Firm Invests in Zimbabwe Prospect Once Owned by Major

Australia-listed Interpose Holdings has secured an 80% stake in a previously unknown gas-condensate prospect in northern Zimbabwe.

In the first upstream natural gas investment since the fall from power of President Robert Mugabe last year, Interpose will pay US$500,000 for Invictus Energy Resources' Cabora Bassa project.

Interpose plans to raise A$4.5 million in the next few months to develop the 250,000-acre prospect. Investors on the Australian stock exchange responded positively to the announcement of the Interpose-Invictus deal, with Interpose's shares gaining 96% during April 19. The area covered by the permit Muzarabani was not publicly known to contain gas resources until Interpose’s April 18 statement, according to a former Zimbabwe deputy energy minister.  There has been no activity in the area in recent years, although Mobil explored there for oil in the 1990s, abandoning the acreage after it found more gas than oil.

Interpose expects to finalise the deal by end-May and to reprocess Mobil's gravity and aeromagnetic data, carry out an environmental impact assessment study, fund a third party independent resource certification and begin preparation for drilling the first exploration well. It has hired a former Woodside Petroleum business advisor, Scott Macmillan, as Interpose’s managing director-designate. He will be rewarded, according to whether three key targets are achieved in evaluation, certification, and initial drilling of any reserves being met between 2019 and 2021.

Interpose has also hired Brent Barber as Zimbabwe country-manager, saying he led Mobil’s exploration efforts in the 1990s there as Mobil exploration manager for sub-Saharan Africa, and adding that Mobil (now part of ExxonMobil) spent $30mn in Zimbabwe then acquiring data, surveys, and 1600km of 2D seismic.  In Interpose’s statement, Macmillan described Mzarabani as “potentially the largest undrilled structure in onshore Africa and a highly attractive exploration prospect.”

However Fred Moyo, Zimbabwe's deputy minister of mines and energy between 2013 and December 2017, said the transaction was a "bit of a surprise" in a country that has seen some coalbed methane (CBM) investment in western Zimbabwe and not much else: “I did not know natural gas existed in Muzarabani to the extent of having this transaction.  However, if you look at the general area where Muzarabani lies, the Zambezi valley, you will see that there must be potential for gas, even for oil."