TotalEnergies, a French oil and gas company, declared a “major discovery” of light oil and associated gas off the coast of Namibia on Thursday, and said it will begin evaluating prospective exploration.

The finding comes after the International Energy Agency (IEA) cautioned last year that if the world is to keep global warming under control, all fossil fuel exploration operations must be halted immediately.

“Approximately 84 meters (275 feet) of net oil pay in an excellent grade Lower Cretaceous reservoir,” TotalEnergies stated in a statement.

“This find offshore Namibia and the extremely encouraging early results confirm the potential of this play in the Orange Basin, on which TotalEnergies has a major interest both in Namibia and South Africa,” said Kevin McLachlan, TotalEnergies’ senior vice president of exploration.

He went on to say that “appraisal activities aimed to determine the commerciality of this finding” will be underway soon.

With a 40 percent working interest, the French energy giant is the block’s operator, with QatarEnergy (30 percent), Impact Oil and Gas (20 percent), and Namibia’s NAMCOR (10 percent).