Boost for Kenya as More Oil is Discovered

Kenya has received a major boost as far as petroleum exportation is concerned after more oil has been discovered in South Lokichar basin in Turkana. Oil drilling firm Tullow Oil disclosed that it had discovered oil in the Emekuya-1 well in the basin just weeks after more oil had been discovered in Turkana County.

“Downhole pressure measurements and fluid samples suggest that the main oil reservoir is on the same static pressure gradient as the Etom-2 well which demonstrates that a major part of the Greater Etom structure is oil-filled,” said the company.

According to Tullow’s country manager Martin Mbogo, the new discovery will boost their efforts of discovering for more oil in the basin.

“This is a good result. The well was drilled close to the Etom-2 well which was a very successful well drilled in late 2016. Finding more oil here in the northern part of South Lokichar basin is good news and will add more oil to the overall resources that we have in the basin. We found oil at Etom-2 and at Erut (in early 2017) and we are now trying to find out if there’s more oil in between these two oil discoveries,” he said.

Mbogo added that the firm will be drilling more wells in the area in in order to ascertain the amount of oil that can be extracted from the region.

“This is a very good start to this process. It shows us that the Greater Etom area (the part of the basin that goes beyond just the Etom discovery itself) does indeed have oil. We’ll have to drill more appraisal wells in the area to find out how much oil there is,” he added.

The discovery comes just weeks after Tullow signed a production agreement with the Kenyan government that gave a go ahead for the transportation of the first consignment of crude oil from Turkana fields to Mombasa for export.