Namibia: PetroRio withdrawal

Brazilian independent PetroRio has announced it is pulling out of Namibia, three years after drilling three high-profile wells without finding commercial hydrocarbons. Samples of light oil were recovered from the 2013 Wingat well, which proved that the oil system in the Walvis Basin was working but may have tested the wrong reservoir interval. It was followed by the Murombe well in the Walvis Basin and the Moosehead well in the Orange Basin, which both came up dry. The company, formerly known as HRT Participações em Petróleo, has been scaling down its activities, selling exploration assets and seeking to generate revenue by acquiring fields that are already in production.