The current proven gas in Mzarabani could power a 500-megawatt power station for 1,000 years, according to Paul Chimbodza, founder and managing director of Geo Associates, as the scale of Zimbabwe’s Cabora Bassa Basin discovery begins to sink in, Mining Zimbabwe can report.
By Rudairo Mapuranga
Two wells. Seven kilometres apart. A licence area spanning 360,000 hectares. And according to Chimbodza, speaking at the Chamber of Mines Annual Conference, the project has barely scratched the surface.
“If you just suppose that with a licence area that is 360,000 hectares, what it says is we have barely scratched the surface,” Chimbodza said. “The two wells, Mukuyu 1 and Mukuyu 2, seven kilometres apart, in a licence area as big as this room, we’ve just scratched the corner.”
Independent estimates rank the broader Mukuyu prospect’s potential at up to 20 trillion cubic feet of gas and 845 million barrels of conventional gas condensate, equating to approximately 4.3 billion barrels of oil equivalent on a gross mean unrisked basis.
One trillion cubic feet of gas can power a 500-megawatt power station for 50 years. At 20 Tcf, that same plant could run for 1,000 years.
The broader Cabora Bassa Basin is estimated to hold about 1.38 billion barrels of oil and condensate, worth approximately US$90 billion at current prices. Wood Mackenzie ranked the Mukuyu discovery as sub-Saharan Africa’s second-largest petroleum find of 2023.
PROJECT DECADES IN THE MAKING
The Mzarabani project is licensed under Geo Associates, with Invictus Energy – an Australian-listed company – holding 80 percent and One Gas Resources holding the remaining 20 percent.
The initial licence area of 100,000 hectares has since been expanded to 360,000 hectares through collaboration with the Mutapa Investment Fund.
Chimbodza noted that Mobil had explored the area for about 10 years, leaving behind seismic data that Geo Associates has reinterpreted using modern computing power and software.
“That’s all we did with the Mobil data,” he said. “We subjected it to new techniques, new resolution, and we started picking up what Mobil couldn’t pick up then.”
The company has generated more than a dozen drill-ready targets across the licence area. “In our case, we are spoiled for choice on where to drill,” Chimbodza said.
MARKET FINALLY EXISTS
Chimbodza noted that while Mobil had explored the area some 40 years ago, the project was never developed because there was no market for gas at the time.
“If you go back 40 years ago, the gas market was non-existent,” he said. “Even in our homes 40 years ago, no one was using cooking gas. Fast forward to today, there is a huge market, not only in Zimbabwe but in the region.”
REGULATORY BREAKTHROUGH
In May 2026, Invictus Energy signed a Petroleum Production Sharing Agreement with the Zimbabwean Government through Geo Associates, establishing the legal and fiscal framework governing oil and gas exploration, production, and revenue sharing.
Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube described the Cabora Bassa project as a “strategic national undertaking” capable of reshaping Zimbabwe’s economy through energy security, industrialisation, and employment creation.
The PPSA adopts a hybrid model allowing Government to receive its share either in cash or in petroleum products, using a sliding-scale model tied to project returns.
WHAT COMES NEXT
Invictus plans to commence appraisal activities at the Mukuyu Gas Field in 2026 to delineate the field’s size and reservoir quality. The company is also preparing to drill the Musuma-1 exploration well in the second half of 2026, targeting an estimated 1.2 trillion cubic feet of gas and 73 million barrels of condensate.
A pilot gas-to-power project is already in motion, with initial generating capacity set at 12MW and potential expansion to 50MW, supplying electricity to Dallaglio Investments’ Eureka Gold Mine.
The project has also confirmed the presence of highly valuable commercial helium as a secondary by-product.
Two wells drilled. A dozen more targets waiting. A resource that could power a 500-megawatt plant for a millennium. And a regulatory framework now in place.
As Chimbodza put it: “We’ve just scratched the corner.”
