Off a busy pier in Namibia’s main port of Walvis Bay, the seeds of an economic boom are being planted.
As workers heave fish from boats, or unload cargoes of sulfur and Congolese copper, a massive cylindrical drilling segment is hauled by extended trailer to a storage area. Between the more typical consignments of raw minerals and imported second-hand vehicles assigned to regional shippers, one lot is filling up with modern oil-exploration equipment.
Once all the drill segments have been collected, they’ll be loaded on a rig and linked together to probe for oil deep beneath the sea floor at the behest of companies including TotalEnergies SE, whose exploration success may be about to transform the fortunes of this country in southwestern Africa.