BG Group encounters oil column at the Sunbird-1 well offshore Kenya
JV partner Pancontinental Oil and Gas has provided an update regarding the Sunbird-1 exploration well in area L10A (Pancontinental 18.75%) offshore southern Kenya.
As advised in Pancontinental's ASX release on 6th January 2014, Pancontinental was not intending to provide any information concerning the progress of the drilling of the Sunbird-1 well until the well had been completed and it was in a position to provide information that was not considered speculative or incomplete. However, due to the news media reports over the weekend stating that the Sunbird-1 exploration well had discovered oil and natural gas, Pancontinental provides the following clarification:
Kenya to invest in Uganda’s oil refinery project
Kenya has announced that it will invest US$74mn in Uganda’s proposed oil refinery project, situated in the Lake Albertine Rift Basin and expected to cost US$2.5bn
According to Daily Nation, Joseph Njoroge, Kenya’s energy principal secretary, said, “The Government of Uganda has invited both Kenya and Rwanda to buy small shares in the refinery. The offer is about three per cent.â€
The refinery is not expected to start operations until 2017 and is estimated to produce an initial 30,000 barrels per day (bpd), the figure doubling to 60,000 bpd after a few years.
In January this year, the country had announced six companies as strategic investors in the refinery.
Africa Oil discovers two more large oil wells in northern Kenya
Canadian oil and gas exploration firm, Africa Oil on Wednesday announced two additional oil discoveries in northern Kenya as search for commercial oil intensifies in the East African nation.
The company said that Amosing-1 and Ewoi-1 exploration wells in Block 10BB, onshore northern Kenya, have resulted in the discovery of two new large oil fields.
"These two wells continue the 100 percent success rate in the South Lokichar Basin with seven out of seven discoveries to date," it said in a statement released in Nairobi.
Kenya, still considered a "frontier exploration" field, by its lack of proven oil deposits except the Turkana find, has witnessed a series oil-based transactions.
Kenya’s economic prospects for next 50 years
We have written and talked enough about the last 50 years, the failed opportunities and the great triumphs. We have downgraded one national triumph, however: pacifying Somalia where a superpower had failed.
Let’s focus on the next half century. On a selfish note, if I live to be Mandela’s age, I shall be there to celebrate Kenya’s centenary.
We all hope that we learnt our lessons in the past 50 years. A few issues will predominate the next 50 years.
The first will be the environment. Wangari Maathai may be gone, but her legacy will live on. The earth is our mother, and we must continue taking care of her. In the next 50 years, there will an increased demand for Earth’s resources, both renewable and non-renewable.
