In this exclusive interview conducted by Oke Peter, Mr. Jason Kasuto, Chairperson of the Namibia Oil & Gas Conference 2026, shares his vision for transforming Namibia's recent oil and gas discoveries into long-term economic prosperity. He stresses that the true value of oil lies not in the resource itself but in the institutions, skills, businesses, and infrastructure built around it.


Kasuto discusses Namibia's readiness for first oil, the importance of local content development, investment opportunities, regulatory reforms, and strategies for avoiding the resource curse. He also highlights the need to balance hydrocarbon development with the global energy transition while leveraging the country's renewable energy potential.


Above all, he argues that Namibia's future success will depend on the choices its people and leaders make today.


How can Namibia turn its oil and gas discoveries into lasting economic growth?

By remembering that the discovery is not the achievement: what we build around it is. A barrel is pumped once, but a skill, a company or an institution pays out for generations. That conversion does not happen by accident. It takes three disciplined moves. First, build local content into procurement from the very first decision, rather than bolting it on at the end. Second, invest the windfall in the wider economy beyond oil, so that we diversify away from oil while the oil is still flowing. Third, put transparency and strong institutions in place so that every dollar is visible and well spent. Oil money is the most expensive money in the world to waste, because you only get it once. Our task is to turn a finite resource into infinite capability. The prize was never the oil itself. It is the economy we are able to build with it, the one that outlasts it.


Is Namibia truly ready for a future as a major oil producing nation?

Geologically, unquestionably. Institutionally, we are getting there, and I would argue that being honest about the gap is itself a mark of readiness. With Venus moving toward a final investment decision and first oil expected around 2029 to 2030, we have a narrow and precious runway. Readiness is not a press release. It is whether the training pipeline, the local supply base and the fiscal and legal framework are in place before first oil, not after. Every cautionary tale on this continent shares the same fingerprint: the money arrived before the institutions were ready for it. So our whole job in this decade is to make sure the institutions arrive first. Readiness is not measured in barrels. It is measured in whether our people, our companies and our systems are ready before the first barrel is loaded, and that race is the whole game.


What are the biggest barriers to oil and gas investment in Namibia today?

Not the geology: the Orange Basin is among the most exciting stories in global exploration this century. The real barriers are of our own making, which is the good news, because it means we can fix them. First is the speed and predictability of our regulatory and fiscal framework. Investors can price hard terms, but they cannot price uncertainty, and our revised petroleum legislation needs to land. Second is infrastructure and local capability, the depth of a supply base that can deliver to specification. Third is getting the fiscal bargain right: capturing a fair share for Namibians without rendering marginal projects uncommercial, in a world where the operators themselves say a field like Venus only works below roughly twenty dollars a barrel. Our biggest barrier is not our rocks. It is our pace.

•Mr. Jason Kasuto, Chairperson of the Namibia Oil & Gas Conference 2026


What attracts investors to large scale energy projects in Namibia?

Three things, and one of them is rare. First, geology of world class quality: multiple discoveries of several billion barrels each, in a single basin, close to market. Second, a credible rule of law and a government that actually engages rather than obstructs. Third, political and institutional stability, which on this continent is not a given, and is worth more than any incentive you can legislate. TotalEnergies committing in the order of 45 billion Namibia dollars to subsea works alone tells you that serious capital has done its homework. Increasingly there is a fourth pull: a genuine partnership approach, in which we offer a stable, capable local base that lowers an operator's cost and risk over time. Capital is at once a coward and a genius. It flees uncertainty, and it hunts value. Namibia offers both the value and, rarer on this continent, stability you can bank on.


What outcomes are you hoping to see from the 2026 Namibia Oil & Gas Conference?

Deals and data, not another communiqué. We have had enough declarations on this continent to fill a library, and too few of them changed a single life. So I want two concrete things to walk out of that room. First, signed business off our Supplier Development Marketplace: real contracts between operators and Namibian firms, concluded at the conference, not vaguely promised after it. Second, the launch of the Namibian Business Readiness Index baseline, which for the first time gives us an honest national benchmark of where our businesses actually stand, one we can all be held against twelve months from now. If local companies leave with contracts in hand, and the country leaves with a number it can be measured by next year, we will have proof rather than rhetoric that this sector is working for Namibians.


How can Namibia balance oil development with the energy transition?

Let me be frank, because this is where Africa is too often lectured. We will not apologise for developing our resources after the industrialised world burned theirs for two centuries to build its prosperity. But the transition is a reason to be clever, not slow. The window for oil value is finite, given peak demand and the risk of stranded assets, so we move with urgency and we invest wisely: use the oil revenue to fund the future rather than consume it, and produce barrels clean enough and cheap enough to survive a decarbonising world. Here Namibia is unusually blessed. We hold not only oil, but some of the planet's best solar, wind and green hydrogen potential. The smart play is to let the oil finance the very transition that will one day succeed it. That is not a contradiction. That is a strategy.


How can local businesses secure a greater share of oil and gas opportunities?

By earning it and proving it, because local content is not a favour operators grant. It is a capability we must demonstrate. That means investing in certification, partnerships and bankability, and it means the system doing its part: the Readiness Index tells operators honestly what local firms can deliver, and the

Supplier Development Marketplace turns that into real contracts rather than token subcontracts. Financing is often the true constraint, and we have to solve access to capital alongside access to opportunity. But the test I hold everyone to is simple. At the end of a contract, is that Namibian firm more capable, more bankable and more owned than the day it started? If yes, the partnership was real. If it is just a name on a letterhead, we have all wasted our time.


Which sectors stand to benefit most from Namibia's oil and gas boom?

The obvious ones will benefit first: marine services, logistics, fabrication, engineering, the upstream supply chain, and the coastal hubs of Walvis Bay and Lüderitz. But let me offer a more provocative answer. The sectors that should benefit most are the ones furthest from the oil, not closest to it. Hospitality, housing, transport, finance, ICT, professional services, and above all education and training will ride the second wave. And the strategic prize is using this revenue to build the industries that will outlast the wells: agriculture, manufacturing, tourism, and green hydrogen. If in twenty years the only thing that grew was the oil sector, we will have failed. The real measure of success is using a finite resource to build an economy that no longer depends on it.

•Mr. Jason Kasuto


What is your outlook for Namibia's economy over the next five years?

Cautiously optimistic, and realistic. The next five years are the runway from decision to dividend: final investment decision, construction, and first oil toward the end of the decade. But I say to anyone who will listen that first oil is not first dividend. The real test is the decade after the taps open. The risks are complacency, fiscal indiscipline, and the presource curse, where a nation spends its expectations before the revenue arrives. Under the 8th Administration, the appetite for genuine economic reform is real, and the urgency is warranted. If we use this window to lay the foundations of institutions, local content, skills and diversification, this is the making of modern Namibia. If we squander it, it becomes a missed generation. The oil will decide nothing. We will.