A petroleum exploration licence holder claiming that a rival company was awarded an exploration licence after an intervention from State House has suffered a loss in an urgent application that it filed in the Windhoek High Court.
The urgent application petroleum exploration licence holder Zambezi Exploration filed five weeks ago did not meet the requirements to be heard as an urgent matter, acting judge David Mangota concluded in a judgement delivered in the Windhoek High Court on Friday.
Zambezi Exploration asked the court to restrain the minister of industries, mines and energy from implementing a decision that was taken on 11 February this year about an petroleum exploration licence for petroleum block 2812A and from taking any further steps in connection with his decision of 11 February.
Zambezi Exploration’s chief executive, Risco Mutelo, informed the court in a sworn statement that his company and the companies Vena Gemstones & Mining and Canadian Global Energy Corp applied for petroleum exploration licences in respect of Namibia’s blocks 2712A and 2812A, situated in the Orange Basin off Namibia’s southern coast, during March 2022.
According to Mutelo, then minister of mines and energy Tom Alweendo informed the companies in June 2022 that Vena Gemstones & Mining’s application was successful for block 2712A.
Alweendo informed Zambezi Exploration and Canadian Global Energy Corp that it was decided to subdivide block 2812A into two halves, block 2812Aa and block 2812Ab, and that Zambezi Exploration’s application for an exploration licence over block 2812Aa and the Canadian company’s application for block 2812Ab were considered.
The former minister also invited the companies to submit petroleum agreements to his ministry and to enter into negotiations with the government about the granting of petroleum exploration licences to them.
Canadian Global Energy Corp informed Alweendo in January 2023 that it was relinquishing its interest in block 2812Ab.
After litigation between Vena Gemstones & Mining and the minister was settled in January 2025, the current minister of industries, mines and energy, Modestus Amutse, informed the managing director of Vena Gemstones & Mining, Nangutuwala Kalumbu, on 11 February this year that he was prepared to grant the company’s application for a petroleum exploration licence over block 2812A, and invited Kalumbu to provide him with a petroleum agreement for block 2812Ab.
Mutelo claimed that decision followed on a letter from State House to Amutse in December last year, and that Amutse was informed in the letter that president Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah instructed that Amutse should be requested to proceed with issuing a petroleum exploration licence in respect of block 2812Ab to Vena Gemstones & Mining.
Mutelo also claimed Amutse’s decision of 11 February was unlawful and that there was no licence application of Vena Gemstones & Mining pending when that decision was taken.
In response to Zambezi Exploration’s urgent application, Amutse filed a counter-application in which he asked the court to declare that the company’s application for a petroleum exploration licence lapsed in February 2023, or September 2023, or November 2023.
Amutse asked the court to declare that all decisions taken by Alweendo after Zambezi Exploration’s licence application lapsed, including the issuing of an exploration licence to the company, are null and void and set aside.
In his judgement, Mangota noted that Zambezi Exploration was aware since January 2023 that Canadian Global Energy Corp relinquished its interest in block 2812Ab.
Zambezi Exploration did not thereafter apply to the minister for a licence in respect of that block to be awarded to it, but instead “waited for the day of reckoning to arrive before it sprang to action”, Mangota said, finding that the urgency of the application that the company filed with the court on 17 March was self-created.
Mangota struck the application from the court’s roll of urgent matters, and ordered the company to pay the legal costs of the minister and Vena Gemstones & Mining.
Zambezi Exploration was represented by Profysen Muluti.
James Diedericks represented the minister, while senior counsel Natasha Bassingthwaighte and Eva Shifotoka represented Vena Gemstones & Mining.
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