The Data Room

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

December 8, 2025 

Issued by: Saving Okavango’s Unique Life. 

SOUL is concerned that recent media headlines suggesting that ReconAfrica has discovered oil in the Kavango are misleading. The December 03 press release from NAMCOR and Reconnaissance Energy Africa announcing that they found “64 net metres of hydrocarbon pay” maintains ReconAfrica’s long-established pattern of using cherry picked information to make claims which are later proven to be untrue. Commercial petroleum discoveries by legitimate companies, such as those offshore Namibia, are marked by unambiguous disclosure of the hydrocarbon type, reservoir configuration, and confirmed flow rates. SOUL supports MP Eneas Emvula whose Notice of a Motion to investigate ReconAfrica passed in the House of Assembly on September 04, 2025. 

ReconAfrica has a track record of making selective announcements while withholding technical data that would prove non-commerciality. Put simply, ReconAfrica and its officials keep saying they found oil when they have not. For instance: 

On September 01, 2022, at an event hosted by The Namibian Chamber of Mines, ReconAfrica’s General Manager Robert Mwanachilega told the panel and audience ‘’We’ve made discoveries of oil and gas in the Kavango Basin, we’ve got oil, oil which flow there.” 

In a June 28, 2021 Press release, ReconAfrica Geologist Ansar Wenke was quoted saying “In fact, at both wells I could see and smell petroleum directly. I am thrilled to have witnessed clear indicators of a working petroleum system in the Kavango Basin.” 

ReconAfrica press releases promoted the 6-2 (Kawe) well on April 15, 2021 with claims of “over 200 meters of oil and natural gas indicators/shows”, and the 6-1 (Mbambi) well on June 24, 2021 with “343 meters of oil and gas indicators/shows”. For those wells, ReconAfrica omitted key technical information necessary for investors to evaluate results. When this data was released it showed the well results were actually terrible news for the company and the share price crashed.  Company insiders have often used these bumps in the share price to sell shares while the negative information is withheld, such as they did in 2021. 

The credibility of ReconAfrica’s operations in Namibia is fundamentally tainted by the professional status and conflicts of interest of its founder and former Chairman, Jay Park. Mr. Park publicly signals that he is a lawyer despite his legal license being under administrative suspension which raises questions about if he has disclosed these facts to Namibian authorities. 

Mr. Park’s biography, published on the Association of International Energy Negotiators website for an event on June 16, 2025, explicitly boasts that he “creates laws and regulations that award petroleum rights” and specifies that Park “has practiced energy law for over 40 years in six continents spanning over fifty countries such as Canada, Mexico, UAE and Namibia”. 

This claim is significant because a 2024 investigation published in New Lines Magazine quoted a Namibian lawyer who asserted that Mr. Park was potentially “in charge of the process of drafting the oil legislation” in Namibia despite ReconAfrica potentially operating under that regulatory framework. Mr. Park demonstrates an impermissible conflict of interest.

This conflict similarly applies to ReconAfrica’s partner BW Energy, which acquired a 20% working interest in PEL 73 in early 2025. Mr.Park’s June statement  that he “creates laws and regulations that award petroleum rights” in Namibia constitutes a profound and undisclosed conflict of interest from which BW Energy, as a major partner in that license and holder of the rights to Kudu Gas field, stands to potentially benefit. 

Even more strange is the fact that BW Energy’s Klaus Endresen, also head of Namibian Petroleum Producers Association, was on stage at the Namibian Chamber of Mines event in September 2022 where ReconAfrica’s manager make an obviously false claim about oil flowing in the basin but later supplied ReconAfrica with much-needed funding and credibility nonetheless.  

Mr. Park has been the subject of three separate RCMP investigations for corruption and bribery, including in Namibia. This investigation marked the fourth time international police forces have publicly investigated his activities in African nations, including allegations of misconduct in Chad, Somalia and Tunisia.

The company’s lack of transparent disclosure regarding its well results, combined with the severe, undisclosed conflicts and alleged bribery history of its founder, J. Jay Park, demonstrates that this operation lacks the integrity required to responsibly manage Namibia’s vital natural resources.  

On December 04, 2025, just a day after Reconafrica said they found oil, Mr.Park’s wife, Deniz Dilek Kuban, sold 200,000 shares at .68 cents netting her 133 000 dollars CAD (about 1,6 million N). She now has only 55 000 shares left according to the SEDI website which tracks insider sales. This significant reduction raises questions about what insiders know about the project’s commercial viability.

Environmental activist, and sustainability researcher, Reinhold Mangundu says “I find it concerning that ReconAfrica continues to present vague and poorly substantiated claims of petroleum discoveries. The Kavango remains one of Namibia’s most pristine and ecologically sensitive regions, and it is worth questioning how operations of this nature have been permitted to continue for so long. Their recent improbable announcement and visit to the State House should prompt MPs to support Honourable Eneas Emvula’s upcoming motion in the National Assembly for a full parliamentary investigation into ReconAfrica.”