PanContinental reckons it has more than 1 billion barrels of oil under Namibia’s sea.

A desktop assessment of 2D seismic data and topographical mapping — conducted before sinking a drill into the seabed — suggests Pancon could get 1.3 billion barrels in a permit area called PEL 87.

The 75 per cent-owned PEL 87 project is not the one Pancon has been crowing about for the last month.

That is the PEL 37 project, to the north, which is next door to an ExxonMobil permit area — and where drilling has started on the Cormorant prospect.

Pancon is hoping to extract 124 million barrels of oil from the Cormorant prospect, but says the whole PEL 37 could hold as much as 915 million barrels of oil.

Pancon chief John Begg told Stockhead he was looking at the ‘Saturn Superfan’ system, a reservoir encased in shale rock that they think could be one big “trap” or pool of oil.

Mr Begg reckons he now has the data to start talking to other companies about a farm-out — oil-speak for selling a stake in a project — to fund extra seismic studies and eventually drilling.

He says they will be targeting “the biggest” companies.

Pancontinental specialises in doing the early data analysis on an oil area and using that to attract joint venture partners, as it did with the PEL 37 area with African oil company Tullow Oil.

Mr Begg says the latest data for PEL 87 “has the feel” of some of the giant discoveries he was involved with as a younger man, such as the 3.2 trillion cubic feet Yetagun gas field which his company proved was there and is now in the hands of Malaysian giant Petronas.

“It’s still early days but the potential scale is obvious,” he said.

Pancontinental shares were flat at 0.9c.

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