Chariot Oil & Gas Plans More Namibia Wells After Two Dry Holes

Chariot Oil & Gas Ltd. (CHAR), a U.K. energy explorer focused on Namibia, plans more drilling in the southern African country next year after failing to make a commercial find with two exploration wells in six months.

“We have multiple future targets for drilling in different geographic locations targeting different geological play types, as well as the opportunity to add new assets to our portfolio,” Chief Executive Officer Paul Welch said today in a statement. “Despite the recent well results being disappointing, we are still in control of our next steps.”

Chariot has lost 85 percent of its market value since March as it failed to make an oil or gas discovery at its Tapir South or Nimrod prospects. The Guernsey, Channel Islands-based company is debt-free and had a cash balance of $112.4 million at the end of June, allowing it to drill two more wells in 2013.

Namibia has attracted attention from the world’s biggest oil companies, with BP Plc (BP/) and Repsol SA (REP) snapping up assets in the past year on a bet that its coastal shelf may mirror that of Brazil across the Atlantic Ocean, where the Tupi discovery in 2007 was the Americas’ biggest offshore find in three decades.

To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Swint in London at bswint@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Will Kennedy at wkennedy3@bloomberg.net