Nairobi, Kenya | – British independent oil and gas company, Tullow Oil plans to start tests to verify the crude oil deposits in three wells in Ngamia oilfield in northwestern Kenya.
The tests at the Ngamia 3, 6 and 8 wells will be carrid out next month. In February 2013, Tullow Oil announced that it had discovered oil deposits in Turkana County, an announcement which raised hopes in Kenya of joining the league of oil producing countries.
Since then progress has been made in drilling more wells.
Tullow Oil says that during the first six months of this year it focused its activities on the appraisal of the South Lokichar Basin to test the extent of previous discoveries and gain important reservoir data for the field development plans.
In January this year, the firm drilled the Ngamia-5 and Ngamia-6 appraisal wells from the Ngamia-1 discovery well pad, and encountered 160-200 metres and 135 metres of net oil pay respectively.
The company said Thursday that “Ngamia-9, final exploratory was completed in July 2015 and encountered between 90-110 metres of net oil pay in the Lokone and Auwerwer intervals”.
Extensive tests will be carried out next month in the Ngamia-8, Ngamia-3 and Ngamia-6 wells of the Ngamia oilfield to determine the commercial viability of the crude oil available.
Multi zone completions have been installed in and clean-up flow testing has been completed. The firm says its exploration activities in other parts of the country are going on well.
Tullow Oil has also announced plans to drill its first exploration oil well in Elgeyo-Marakwet in January this year.
The Cheptuket exploration well in Block 12A is scheduled to commence in October 2015 and will test a basin bounding structural closure in the Kerio Valley Basin in a similar structural setting to the successful Ngamia and Amosing discoveries.
Even as Kenya eagerly awaits the test results, the East African Pipeline route to export oil from Lake Albert in Uganda and the South Lokichar Basin is yet to be determined.
Tullow Oil says it expects the Kenyan and Ugandan governments to make the decision on the pipeline route in the current quarter.
