The Sunday Mail
GOVERNMENT has roped in a European company to de-script data on a gas and oil exploration exercise done by an American oil company, Mobil Oil International, in the early 1990s, particularly in the wake of strong indications that the country could be sitting on the precious resources.
Mobil conducted an aero-magnetic survey — one of the geophysical techniques used to explore minerals — on the stretch covering Kariba, Zambezi up to Muzarabani spanning over 30 120 square kilometres, but left the country around 1995 with the equipment that could have been used to decode the data.
Its exercise took five years to conclude and preliminary samples from the exploration have revealed that oil and gas could be available in the country.
Government’s spirited interest in decoding the data comes after a number of African countries such as Mozambique and Namibia announced oil and gas finds, a development that has engendered compelling inferences that the country might be hosting the precious resources.
Staff from the yet unidentified European company, whose identity remains under wraps for confidential reasons, jetted into the country last week and immediately graced the mining indaba in Harare before meeting key Government officials to map the way forward.
Mines and Mining Development Deputy Minister Engineer Fred Moyo last week confirmed that a team from Europe was in the country to work out possibilities of making the available date readable.
Eng Moyo said the information could be used to lure investors into the mining sector.
GeoAssociates (Private) Limited chief executive officer Mr Simbarashe Chimboza, a geologist who has also been tasked by Government to assist in the project, said Mobil conducted its exploration at a time when technology was not advanced and tapes on which the information was captured and stored could not be decoded easily.
“What happened is that the Canadians were here and they did some (exploration) work and left their findings with the Geological Survey department. Then came Mobil between 1989 to about 1993-94.
“Mobil had a memorandum of agreement with Government to explore for oil covering Kariba, all the area down into Zambezi and Muzarabani.
“In those days, the technology was way before the advent of flash disks, CDs (compact discs) and all that, and the information was stored on magnetic tapes, remember those old film reels.
“That information is on there and some of it is on cassettes and when Mobil left the country around 1995, for one reason or the other, they left with their equipment that was used to decode information that is on those tapes and from 1995 up to about last year, that information was just sitting and gathering dust in the Geological Survey department and no one had the equipment to read that.
“When we came on board and got involved in the whole business of oil and gas exploration under GeoAssociates, we then realised that we had a wealth of information which we could not read because no one had the capacity to decode those tapes; that is when we started going all over the world to find someone able to read those tapes.
“We finally got a company that specialises in that because ours are specialised films. I am not sure at this point if I can mention the company’s name because there is confidentiality issues, but when the time comes and agreements signed, I am sure the ministry will be in a position to disclose . . .” said Mr Chimbodza.
Already, the company has been able to decode a “sample tape” and “we are very excited about what is there”.
The sample tape is one of hundreds others that are available.
Government policy forbids “proprietary data” of this nature from being taken outside the country for decoding.
“We can’t take all the tapes out; so, these people have to come here and do the decoding here. There is also the issue of skills transfer to our local geo-physists within the ministry . . . as they (the European company) decode, our people will be there also observing how they do it.
“Finally, that data can be quite useful. How is it going to be useful? It is because Mobil did exploration over a huge area and the idea now is to try and excite people to come and do oil and gas exploration.
“So, that database is going to be a good foundation for people who will come and start looking for minerals. They are not going to start from scratch, but in the current format, this data is useless because no one can read it.
“Once this data is decoded and put in a usable format, Government can then decide on the modalities of how they are going to be giving out exploration blocks and that data would be sold out to recoup the cost of decoding that is happening now,” said Mr Chimbodza.
After examining the data, the company is expected to forward a proposal on “what they think they can do with that data”.
Added Mr Chimbodza: “The Ministry and Government will also dictate what they think should be done; ultimately people will then come up with working modalities, but the most likely scenario is that we go into some memorandum of understanding or agreement which will have milestones.
“However, it is common knowledge that private players and Government agree that Zimbabwe needs this information like yesterday. So, there is urgency. Other countries in the region and even our neighbours are already miles ahead of us and we need to play catch-up; so, the issue of doing this quickly is of paramount importance.
“The work that is happening now is taking over from what Mobil did and taking it to a logical conclusion and if we are lucky we might get positive results, but that is the nature of exploration — it might be positive or negative.”
Fears of geological data
in foreign hands
Recently, there were fears that foreigners could be in possession of key geological data after Engineer Fred Moyo told Parliament that a Canadian firm had withheld data from a geological survey that had been conducted in Zimbabwe.
The Canadian firm was not named, but the Canadian International Development Agency (Cida) has been active on local exploration initiatives.
It has been involved in an aeromagnetic survey in the Karoo basin in the mid-Zambezi basin.
Also, the Agency has sponsored analogue and digital aeromagnetic surveys in several countries.
In certain cases, the digital data are stored at the Geophysical Data Centre (GDC) in the United States.
The GDC has digital data available for countries such as Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Pakistan, Rwanda, Upper Volta (Burkina Faso) (data from 1976-1980) and Zimbabwe.
Worryingly, all countries, excluding Zimbabwe, require users to get permission from officials in that country in order to acquire the data from GDC.
But Mr Chimboza said data in respect of the exploration exercise sponsored by Cida is readily available and is in a readable format at the Geological Survey department.
The Cida exercise was a government-to-government initiative, where aeromagnetic surveys for minerals were done.
There were earlier reports that maps and some data related to the Cida-funded exercise had vanished, resulting in foreigners knowing the quantum of Zimbabwe’s mineral reserves while locals didn’t.
“It was a Cida-funded exercise and the type of work done does not give you resource definition. It’s a type of work that you use to home-in on potential targets.
“You can imagine you want to look for platinum or oil in Zimbabwe; where do you start? But when you have that type of work, you use it to select prospective sites and zoom in on those prospective sites.
“It’s not like that work is going to give you a definitive indication that you have got so much of this mineral; it’s a tool in exploration which can then have other tools used and finally you get to the definitive stage where you say we have got so much mineral.
“All the maps they came up with are at the Geological Survey and the data is in readable format,” he said.
Cida was an organisation that administered foreign aid programmes in developing countries, and operated in partnership with other Canadian organisations in the public and private sectors as well as other international organisations.
The 45-year-old federal Agency was last year merged into the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.
Some critics say Zimbabwe last had a meaningful mineral exploration between 1961 and 1968, but Government officials say real exploration was done as recent as 1995, giving birth to mining giants such as Freda Rebecca Mine.
It is also understood that a lot of exploration was done by private companies and “they have got an obligation to lodge periodic update reports with Government”. Exploration results by private players are also stored as database for the country.
Since the 1995 exploration, there has been a decline in exploration activities except on the coal front where new coal mines have come on stream.
