Swala Energy upbeat on oil bearing rock in Pangani basin

Gas
The 100-kilometre-long 2D seismic survey carried out by an Australian company, Swala Oil & Gas Limited, in the Pangani basin in Kilimanjaro region has given hope of natural gas and oil in the area.


The completion of the 2D seismic program that Swala has a 50 percent interest in the license and is the operator was announced by the Chief Executive Officer Dr David Ridge mid last week.

According to him, the 2D seismic survey commenced mid-November and was scheduled to terminate on the 20 December. During this time the company has acquired licence to 200Kilometre of 2D seismic over the Mvungwe and Moshi basins.

Results from the survey show that the Moshi basin to the north of the license area, appears to be a deep basin with sedimentary fill of probable Neogene age, indicating a shallow depth of burial and positive for oil search.

Further evidence from the seismic survey suggests that the basin is fault-bounded, some 25km wide, and with basin fill to between 2,000 and 3,000m depth.

“The Mvungwe basin, to the south of the license area, is still being processed but initial results suggest that the basin is shallower, at less than 1,000m deep, and contains sediments of probable Neogene age,” he said.

He said that shallow basins may be quite productive with the right heat flows and the company will now continue with its planned basin modeling program to determine whether the regional high heat flows would allow hydrocarbon generation in Mvungwe at these relatively shallow depths of burial.

Completion of the Pangani survey marks the end of Swala’s 2013 seismic program in Tanzania, during which over 500km of seismic probing has been shot over five basins within its two licenses.

“The results of the Pangani survey follow positive results received from the survey over the Kilosa-Kilombero license as has been previously announced,” Dr Ridge noted.

Results from the 2D acquisition over Pangani are highly encouraging, especially in the northern Moshi basin where we appear to have defined another Neogene basin,” the geologist intoned.

 “We now aim to consolidate our understanding of the two licenses by completing the seismic interpretation over Pangani, the basin modeling over Mvungwe and the analysis of geochemical samples collected from our basins as part of our seismic survey,” he elaborated.

Swala Energy Limited is an Australian independent oil and gas exploration company exploring the East African Rift System. It currently holds substantial equity in assets in Tanzania and Kenya and has an active business development program in Sub-Saharan Africa.   

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN