Reports Leo Odera Omolo
NEWS emerging from Kampala says that the London-based Tullow Oil has announced its discovery of two more oil wells in Western Uganda.
The Irish company says it has encountered oil line with pre-drilling expectations in Albertine basin.
The oil prospecting company said it had discovered hydrocarbon {oil and gas} bearing reservoirs in Jobi-East 1 and Mpyo-3 well sunk in exploration area EA-1 seismic in the Lake Albert Rift basin.
A gross one billion barrels of oil has been discovered to date in Uganda’s Albertine Rift. With many prospect still to be drilled, Tullow Oil Plc believes the basin has an additional 1.5 billion barrels of oil yet to be found.
“Jobi-East-I and Mpyo 3B well results mark an excellent start to the next phase of exploration and appraisal campaign in the basin to determine the total oil resource base, says Angus McCross, the Tullow’s exploration director.
The logging and sampling operations confirmed the presence of oil in two high quality reservoir zones. In addition, gas has also been logged and sampled with sands.
Tullow Oil has interest in EA-1 as well as exploration area 2 and 3A in Uganda. This firm gained a foothold in the landlocked country through the acquisition of Energy Africa in2004 and Hardman Resources in 2007.
“We look forward to more exciting wells as we endeavor to determine the total oil resources base, which will underpin the basin-wide development preparation in progress,” adds McCross.
At the same time Tullow CEO Aidan Heavy was also quoted as saying that plans to accelerate production stage of highly successful Uganda blocks are underway.
In the neighboring Kenya meanwhile, a Canadian oil exploration firm, Vanoil Energy, will spend USD 4.6 million on acquisition of seismic data in Block 3B in Northern Kenya in preparation for drilling of oil and gas wells.
The Canadian firm has contracted the Bureau of Geophysical Prospecting {BCP] to carry out the seismic survey to map out potential drilling sites.
Completion of the data acquisition is expected by the end of September 2011. Dal Brynalsen the Vanoil CEO said the objective of the 2011 seismic program me is to delineate more leads in Block 3B and upgrade three known leads to possible drillable target.”We are very pleasant to have executed a second agreement and look forward to engaging such a high quality organization to implement our seismic plans,” he said.
Evaluation is going on for 2010 seismic program which cost over USD 5 million Vanoil has executed another contract with BGP for USD 3.5 million involving acquisition of 373 kilometer data.
Additional costs will be incurred on technical equipment audit, quality assurance control, data reprocessing, interpretation and integration with other geophysical or geological data.
A crew is being mobilized to commence field operations as a sensitization grass roots resident in the area is ongoing.
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