Recon Africa hired Sproule, an energy consulting and advisory firm, to write a report in 2018, which was updated in 2020. The report said there was a very low chance of commercial success (less than 4%), and that any extractable reserves would be unconventional i,e fracking. Sproule based the possibility of recoverable assets strictly on fracking: “the undiscovered petroleum initially-in-place and prospective resources included in the 2020 Sproule Report represent the unconventional (tight gas, shale gas and tight oil) resources on the Company’s lands and do not include potential conventional prospective resources. The company did not commission any other report and relied on the Sproule report as the basis for their investor presentations. https://reconafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/Sproule-Report-ReconAfrica-July-2020.pdf
A reddit post by VDGruk 4 years ago is an English version of an Article posted in Namibia’s German Paper https://www.reddit.com/r/ReconAfrica/comments/n9003r/article_in_az_namibia/?rdt=36199
The article is from May 2021 and can also be translated from the paper’s website. https://www.az.com.na/nachrichten/reconafrica-muss-vors-obergericht2021-05-10/
The article quotes SouthAfrican geologist Jan Ackert referencing how ReconAfrica misrepresented the Sproule report:
“Arkert also criticizes the “sparse” use of facts and what he calls “cherry picking” from the 2018 Sproule report. Successful exploration for oil and gas has largely been based on this report – Sproule International is a leading engineering firm from Canada that surveys subsurface resources. According to Arkert, the references to oil and gas volumes are misleading, especially since the 2018 and 2020 reports are significantly different: “They have not disclosed the conclusions on pages 11 and 12, where they conclude that the geological chances of success (GCoS) are 8.8 percent and the chances of commercialization (CoC) are only 3.3 percent. Furthermore, the oil or gas volume is 36.7 million barrels and the gas volume is 1.59 tcf, which is significantly less than the 120 billion barrels of oil referenced in interviews by Nick Steinberger and Daniel Jarvie or in ReconAfrica’s recent promotional literature.”
Viceroy also referenced Sproule’s report. We are aware that Viceroy shorted the stock, it does not change the facts. We are sure #RECAF must have presented an attractive target.
Recon Africa came to Namibia to frack.
The company has consistently told investors that there would be fracking, and the exploration was originally sold to investors as an ‘’unconventional’’ play.
ReconAfrica structural geologist and company insider Dr.James Granath co-authored an article titled “Why Not Both Conventional and Unconventional Exploration in Sub-Saharan Africa?” in February 2018. The article emphasises unconventional opportunities in Sub-Saharan Africa.
October 28 2019 Recon Africa chairman and insider Jay Park made a presentation at the 121 Oil & Gas Investment Autumn Conference in London where he compared the Kavango Basin to Eagle Ford and Whitehill which are also other unconventional plays. Park also said that unconventional shale gas was the primary target.
Jay Park said in a Feb 2020 YouTube interview with Proactive
“In particular, we noted how the shale revolution has changed things so much in the oil and gas industry in the United States and in Canada,… We filtered through all the places that had the right geology, the right geophysical terms combined with a good petroleum regime and Namibia came out very high on that list.” He added that “The basin [Kavango Basin] is the size of the entirety of the EagleFord [an unconventional frack oil & gas basin], it has thousands of wells in Texas.”
The company’s investor presentations included a slide that made mention of ‘’production from horizontals’’ and ‘’modern frac stimulations’’ for 11 consecutive months from May 2019 to March 2020..
According to public securities complaint filed against the company, the company made changes to their website:
In June, All references to “unconventional” and “shale” disappeared from ReconAfrica’s website and investor materials, but were replaced with words that can be interpreted synonymously (e.g., “source rocks” because “the source rock is the shale”
15):o “The survey and analysis confirm that the Kavango Basin reaches depths of up to 30,000 feet, under optimal conditions to preserve a thick interval of organic rich marine source rocks.”
o “The main objective is to confirm organic rich source rocks and conventional opportunitis in Namibia and Botswana.”
o “In the Kavango Basin, the existence of this organic source rock is proven by the ST-1 well, which is located due west of the basin.”
o No more usage of the “Shale Play Valuation by Acreage” chart.
o Play concept map still shows wells in same locations but now they are called “Source Rock Basins.”
The ReconAfrica Research Report July 2020, however, stated clearly “While the initial target is an unconventional play in the lower Permian aged Karoo shales, the potential of shallower conventional targets will also be tested.”
The July 2020 report went on to assign a value estimate of the resource: “Given the low government burden, and expectation of relatively low operating and transportation costs, we estimate a potential net asset value implication ~C$0.12/sh for every ~ MMBbls of recoverable crude from a conventional discovery and C$0.67/sh for every 10 MMBbls from a resource play.”
Company geologist and insider Dan Jarvie’s presentation entitled Petroleum Potential in the Kavango Basin from September 2020 that stated that the basin represented a ‘’PERMIAN PETROLEUM SYSTEM’’ which was allegedly confirmed by ST1 well (Kawe drill site). The slide also stated that the basin was ‘’Continuous with Shell SA Permian Unconventional.” https://web.archive.org/web/20200902030107/https:/reconafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/ReconAfrica-Postulated-Petroleum-Yields-V2.pdf
In a September 01, 2020 interview with Oilprice.com, ReconAfrica Geologist Dan Jarvie states that ‘’The Kavango Basin has all the characteristics necessary for conventional and unconventional petroleum”.
The website Oilprice.com is by Recon Africa used to disseminate paid content to investors. The company and its representatives’ appeared in articles by Oilprice.com and made numerous indications that unconventional shale gas and oil was part of the exploration in Namibia for ReconAfrica.
The company was still marketing shale gas and fracking to investors in September 2020 through ‘’interviews’’ with the publication, who in some cases, has been compensated to transmit the company’s message, though the terms of the compensation are never fully disclosed.
The article’s central theme is that Kavango represents one of the last great fracking opportunities and that Nick Steinsberger was an expert in fracking and could recover these resources for commercial value. The article begins with the following:
‘In an exclusive interview with Oilprice.com, Steinsberger reveals:
· Why Namibia is our best chance of a shale boom repeat
· Why the country’s Kavango Basin is looking like it could be the next Texas Permian
· Why the man who invented ‘slick-water fracking’ is ready to drill the Kavango Basin’
Two days after the Steinsberger ‘interview’ was published, on September 18, 2020, the Namibian Ministry of Mines clarified that no license for fracking had ever been granted in Namibia, nor had any license for fracking ever been applied for.
In a response to geologist Matt Totten at a February public consultation, who asked how the company came to determine fracking was no longer part of their plans. Claire Preece, company spokesperson, said ‘’We launched a comprehensive regional tectonic and stratigraphic study that was completed in March 2020, and established that conventional oil and gas and fundamentals are the “basis of our operational program”..’’ :
Yet, long after June 2020 when the slides were removed from their investor presentation and the study was complete, the company continued to market the play as unconventional to investors through their dealer broker, Haywood Securities and their paid content.
Other site ‘authors’ at Oilprice.com such as ‘James Catley’ reference the Sproule report as late as December 21 which states that it was clearly an unconventional resource play.
The Namibian government ministers
June 30, 2021: Viceroy Research releases recorded audio with the Namibian Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME) Petroleum Commissioner, Maggy Shino, where she emphatically states:
“We have no intention of licensing any company, whether Recon or any other company, to be able to do fracking in Namibia. That is not something that is to be done in Namibia.”
“The Namibian government stands firm against any fracking activity and there is no way that we will license or ratify any company, whether Recon or any other company to come and do unconventional hydrocarbon exploration in Namibia.”
“You can repeat it again, we are saying it over and over again, you can transmit it and multiply it as many times as possible, this is the position of the Namibian government, there will be NO fracking on the Namibian soil.”
In their latest public report ReconAfrica left the door open for fracking again. Soon, you will start to hear about how great it would be for Namibia if this was gas instead of oil
The Data Room 
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