Thursday, September 26, 2013
A Tullow oil exploration site in Turkana. British exploration firm
Tullow Oil Plc said that it had made the discovery at the Ekales-1
September 26, 2013. FILE
NATION MEDIA GROUP
Kenya has struck oil for the fourth time raising the country’s prospects of becoming an oil producer.
In
a statement, British exploration firm Tullow Oil Plc said that it had
made the discovery at the Ekales-1 well located between Ngamia-1 and
Twiga -1 wells.
The discovery,
according to Tullow, shows that the oil is in reservoirs of between 60
and 100 metres, although further flow testing at the well which is
planned in the future will confirm the actual amount of oil in the well.
“This
success at the Ekales-1 is further evidence of the exceptional oil
potential of our East African Rift Basin acreage. Having opened the
first basin with the Ngamia-1 well last year, we are now increasing the
pace of exploration in Kenya aiming for 12 wells over the next 12
months,” said Angus McCoss, Exploration director at Tullow Oil Plc.
So
far, the British firm is the only company among those that are licensed
for exploration for oil and gas locally that has discovered oil.
Ekales-1
well is located in Block 13T in the Northern part of Kenya. Tullow has
also discovered oil at the Ngamia-1 well, Twiga South-1 well and Etuko-1
wells in northern Kenya.
In its
half year report, the oil explorer said that local oil deposits, which
they estimated to be in excess of 300 million barrels, meet the
threshold for commercial exploitation, an indication that the company
could consider start the production process once the necessary
infrastructure such as pipelines is set up.
However,
the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum has insisted that oil exploration
companies need to drill a certain minimum number of wells, which in most
industry practices can be as many as 40 before production can start.
No comments :
Post a Comment