Harare - Australian Stock Exchange listed independent oil and gas exploration company, Invictus Energy,  focused on high impact resources in Sub Saharan Africa has made an announcement to its shareholders through the ASX that explorations are ongoing. In a statement the company said explorations are ongoing with an aim to drill the first gas and oil exploration well in the Cabora Bassa Basin in Zimbabwe. The basin which spans 30120 kms was previously explored by Mobil Oil between 1989 and 1993 and the conclusions then were that the basin was likely to contain gas which implied the existence of oil. At a press conference on Thursday 1 November, Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa said the government of Zimbabwe has been working with Invictus and facilitating exploration activities in Muzarabani. He said an exploration well is expected to be sunk by 2020 subsequent to which a further confirmation and mining will be done. The ministry of Information and most state controlled media has however gone into overdrive falsely stating that gas and oil has been discovered in Muzarabani, a statement which Invictus  denies. In  a statement Invictus said no such discovery of oil and gas has been made  and that the prospective resource estimate for the Muzarabani Prospect relates to undiscovered accumulations which have both a risk of discovery and of development. In simple terms Invictus said the potential resources in gas and oil carry a risk of failure to be discovered and failure to be development. This is so because the explorations done so far have not yet ascertained the likely behaviour of these variables. If the explorations succeed, the discovery is likely to be a long term potential game changer for Zimbabwe whose key import is oil in the form of refined Diesel and Petrol. The discovery will tilt the trade balance in favour of Zimbabwe further underpinned by exports growth. A decade ago vast tracts of Diamond touted as the World’s largest deposit was discovered in the Marange, an area in the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe. Although no scientific examinations were made Zimbabwe was estimated to have the potential to supply 25 percent of the World’s diamond demand. The discovery however turned into a circus as government went on a rampant looting spree of the commodity. To date the discovery has failed to improve the country’s economic welfare. Zimbabwe has a vast resource endowment but the realisation of full potential has been hampered by corruption and bad policies and this stands in the way as a major risk for the  prospective and gas finding. Equity Axis News