Australian oil and gas company Invictus Energy announced on Monday that it had found light oil, gas and helium in remote northeastern Zimbabwe, after months of exploration.
The company said, in a statement, that analysis of samples from its remote locations near the border with Mozambique confirmed the presence of “light oil, gas condensate and helium”.
According to the company, the result “conclusively proves the presence of hydrocarbons” in one of the wells.
The company indicated that the analyzed samples “show a consistent, high-quality composition of natural gas, and show a low inert content of less than one percent of carbon dioxide.”
This discovery comes 30 years after the American oil giant “Exxon Mobil” abandoned its endeavor to secure crude oil in the region.
The discovery leads to the first gas production in Zimbabwe, and helps improve energy supplies in a country suffering from an acute shortage of electricity.
Zimbabwe suffers severe power outages of up to 19 hours a day.
Invictus Energy signed an exploration, development and production agreement with Zimbabwe in 2018.
The company plans to build a gas-to-energy facility to supply the national grid.