Tullow Oil to submit Kenya development plan next year

Politics and policy

A Tullow Oil exhibition stand in Uganda. Photo/FILE 

By Reuters

In Summary

• Government has become more focused on early development of Kenya’s first oil discovery and project approval is expected in 2015 or 2016.
• Tullow plans extensive appraisal drilling and testing this year and next.
• Discussions are under way on who will lead the development of a pipeline to transport the crude oil to Lamu on the Kenyan coast.

British explorer Tullow Oil and partner Africa Oil Corp aim to submit development plans to the Kenyan government late next year for their oil discovery in the northwest of the country, executives from the firms said on Tuesday.

Oil discoveries in Uganda and Kenya by Tullow Oil and gas deposits found off Tanzania and Mozambique have turned east Africa into a frontier for hydrocarbon exploration.

In an update in January, Tullow and Africa Oil doubled the estimate of their discoveries in Kenya’s South Lokichar basin to 600 million barrels.

READ: Tullow puts Turkana oil at a billion barrels after new find

Since then Tullow has said the Kenyan government has become more focused on early development of Kenya’s first oil discovery and project approval is expected in 2015 or 2016.

Tullow said it plans extensive appraisal drilling and testing this year and next.

READ: Tullow puts development of Kenya oil fields on fast track

“We are expecting to submit our field development plans to the government in the fourth quarter of 2015,” Robin Sutherland, Tullow Oil’s exploration manager for sub-Saharan Africa, told an oil and gas conference in Nairobi.

Discussions were under way on who will lead the development of a pipeline to transport the crude oil to Lamu on the Kenyan coast, he said.

Kenya’s plans for oil production have moved fast since Tullow and Africa Oil’s discovery of the South Lokichar basin was announced in March 2012.

In a speech read on his behalf at the conference, Kenya’s Energy secretary Davis Chirchir, said the government was soliciting expressions of interest for the pipeline in three segments.

James Phillips, vice president for business development at Africa Oil Corporation, said the discoveries in the Lokichar Basin so far had already met the minimum amount of oil required for commercial development.