Canadian Firm Discovers More Oil In Kenya

Oil drilling has begun in the breakaway northern region of Somalia known as Puntland. The imperialist intervention in the Horn of Africa nation is clearly for resources., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Canadian firm discovers more oil in Kenya

September 26, 2013

NAIROBI — Canadian oil exploration firm Africa Oil said on Thursday that it has discovered oil in Ekales, located within Lokichar basin in northern Kenya.

The company said in a statement that the discovered oil in Block 13T in Kenya Petrophysical analysis of wireline logs and formation sampling indicates a potential pay zone of 60 to 100 meters which will be confirmed by flow testing.

Africa Oil CEO Keith Hill said the company was pleased with the 100 percent success rate of the drilling program to date in northern Kenya, noting that with 10 additional leads and prospects in this basin they expect additional discoveries soon.

“We are equally excited about the basin opening wells being drilled in two new areas and the pace of exploration ahead with 6 active rigs operating full time. This discovery gives us further incentive to aggressively push forward plans for development studies of this world class project in conjunction with our partners and the government of Kenya.”

While decades of oil exploration failed to yield results, in most cases, ending with nothing less than a bottle of crude oil, Kenyan officials say there were high hopes of Kenya striking commercial oil with the advent of new oil exploration technologies.

Kenya and the entire East African region, has witnessed intensified exploratory activity since 2003, which led to the discoveries of oil and gas in Uganda and Tanzania. There is also ongoing exploration in Ethiopia.

The East African nation has drilled 31 dry wells in Isiolo, northeastern Kenya and Lamu (Southeast) and has lost a lot of money.

Officials said the discovery of the commercial quantities of oil in Turkana, one of the poorest communities, should also ignite new investments in the economy of Turkana.

The Ekales well was spud July 22 and has a planned total depth of 8,202 feet (2,500 meters) and is expected to take approximately 2 months to drill and evaluate.

The primary objectives are the Auwerwer and Lower Lokhone sandstones already established to be highly productive reservoirs at the nearby Ngamia and Twiga discoveries.

The well is located in Block 13T in Kenya and the company holds a 50 percent working interest with operator Tullow Oil Kenya holding the remaining interest and operatorship.

Africa Oil said the latest discovery further de-risks and represents the fourth consecutive significant oil find in this basin.

Kenya has never made any substantive commercial oil discoveries despite ongoing oil exploration that started in the East African nation in the early 1930s and later picked off in the 1950s.

– Xinhua.