Expanded acreage with a prospective resource upgrade on the way?

This morning our 2020 Energy Pick Of The Year Invictus Energy (ASX: IVZ) confirmed the official “Gazettal” of its expanded acreage which now covers the entire conventional oil and gas play in the Cabora Bassa Basin, Zimbabwe.

Importantly, it covers the basin margin “string of pearls” play.

Long time readers will remember one of our first ever oil and gas picks, Africa Oil, which drilled its own “string of pearls” play in the Lokichar Basin in Kenya in 2012, after which its share price gained ~1,200%.

IVZ, ten years later, is about to drill its first ever well. Similar to Africa Oil’s drilling program, it could potentially be a “basin opening”, meaning it could mark the first discovery in a previously undrilled basin.

IVZ now controls exploration rights over a total of ~360,000 acres ahead of its maiden drilling program at the Mukuyu-1 prospect, targeting 20 trillion cubic feet of gas and 845 million barrels of gas condensate.

We also note that in today’s announcement, IVZ commented on a prospective resource estimate being prepared which would include the basin margin targets.

We think the market is missing the potential resource upgrade potential here and expect to see the company’s share price re-rate further once this announcement is out.

The prospective resource upgrade will cover the prospects in the image below.

We think there is a good chance IVZ will upgrade its resource significantly, especially considering the number of leads it has across these targets.