16 December, 2014

The Oil exploration tempo in Kenya to remain largely unchanged in 2015

Tuesday, December 16, 2014


Kenya News -- While the news of falling oil prices has been bad enough for Nairobi and a host of international companies spearheading exploration activities in the country, there are signs that this will not have significant impact of the pace of oil search in the country.  This is the tone set by Tullow oil, one of the key companies spearheading oil exploration in Kenya and other East Africa countries.
Tullow’s CEO, Aidan Heavey, had the following to say:

In light of current oil and gas sector challenges including the commodity price environment, we are reviewing our capital expenditure and our cost base to ensure that Tullow is well positioned for future success.
Our overall exploration spend will be significantly reduced and will focus primarily on East Africa where we have major basin opening potential,” said Tullow’s chief executive officer Aidan Heavey. It targets to reduce the net exploration and appraisal budget for 2015 by $300 million, a situation that is likely to affect the firm’s exploration activity in Kenya.

High Hopes in Kenya

While exploration activities are expected to slow down considerably on the global scale, Kenya is one country in which oil exploration has a high chance of paying off. Commerciality has already been confirmed in wells dug in the Lokichar basin alone, and there are several other blocks with similar geological formation and which are expected to give good results. However, this does not imply that companies involved are not working on ways to cut their exploration spending.   According to the Kenya Oil and Gas Association, the umbrella organization for local oil explorers, each company will is expected to make its own evaluations.

Road to production


Even with the worsening oil prices, Tullow oil is still aiming to produce, oil by end of 2016. The oil will initially be sold in the local market. Kenya currently imports close to 100,000 barrels of oil a day to satisfy domestic demand.  Read here for more information on oil activity in Kenya and Uganda.

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