By George Obulutsa
LOKICHAR, Kenya, April 5 (Reuters) – Kenya has seen a surge
of interest for new oil blocks after striking oil last week,
Martin Heya, commissioner of petroleum at the ministry of
energy, said on Thursday.
The east African country is abuzz with news of its first oil
discovery in the dry and dusty northwest town where
Africa-focused UK firm Tullow Oil Plc has been
exploring.
The next step is to determine whether the find is
commercially viable.
East Africa as well as the Horn of the continent have become
a hot spot for oil and gas exploration, spurred by new finds.
“I can assure you the interest is overwhelming,” Heya told
Reuters during a visit to a Tullow well just outside the small
town of Lokicharat in a remote area surrounded by semi desert
scrub land.
“Big companies like Petrobras , Total
, even Apache and others want those very deep
water blocks … I think it’s a testimony that there is oil in
Kenya.”
Heya said there were 46 blocks, 30 are already licensed, and
16 others are unlicensed. Of the 16, 13 have expressions of
interest, he said.
“There are only three which are vacant. And those ones, it’s
because there is no data. We are putting in place plans to
acquire data. We are also acquiring data in one of the (vacant)
blocks, L19,” he said.
Heya added that nine companies had expressed interest in the
13 other blocks.
Tullow Oil and Canada’s Africa Oil Corp. each have a
50 percent working interest in Kenya’s block 10BB.
The well had reached a depth of 1,041 metres at the time of
the discovery.
Tullow, which has discovered commercial oil deposits in
Uganda and Ghana, said trucking equipment to the well and
finding skilled manpower was difficult in one of Kenya’s poorest
areas.
“We are only halfway through the well. As we progress
towards the target of 2,700 metres,” Martin Mbogo, the general
manager for Tullow in Kenya, told reporters.
Tullow estimates it could spend up to $40 million on the
drilling at the Ngamia 1 site.
“It may be a matter of months, sometimes years, before you
can actually make the determinations that you have a commercial
well. However, what we have is very encouraging,” Mbogo said.
(Writing by James Macharia; editing by Jason Neely)
