Africa Oil Corporation, the company mandated to mine oil in Turkana has revealed that there is more oil in the region than previously discovered.
Africa Oil Corporation President and CEO Keith Hill broke the news revealing that The Ngamia discovery, which was the maiden spot where oil was discovered, was a massive milestone in oil discovery in East Africa, adding that some basins had to be de-risked by the Ngamia basin.
“The Ngamia discovery has been an amazing start to our East African drilling campaign. The large number of leads and prospects developed to date shows the major upside potential of these basins and many of these have now been de-risked by the success at Ngamia. We look forward to several more high impact wells this year as we accelerate the exploration of these highly prospective trends,” said Hill.
After drilling 2,340 metres,more light oil has been discovered in the region but the company has suspended it for future flow testing. Following the 100 metres of net oil pay in the Upper Lokhone Sand section previously reported, the well encountered an additional 43 metres of potential oil pay based on logs and the recovery of light oil on an MDT sample over a gross interval of 150 meters.
Testing equipment including downhole pumps is being mobilized and the intention is to flow test a number of the zones in the Upper and Lower Lokhone Sands in the near future to confirm the full potential of this discovery. Oil was encountered in sands throughout an 1,100 meter interval, including a 300 meter thick section of Lokhone Shale, which is believed to be the primary source interval in the South Lokichar Basin.
Over one hundred leads and prospects have now been identified in seven separate basins in the Kenya and Ethiopia Tertiary rift basin acreage. Those located in the South Lokichar Basin have been substantially de-risked due to their proximity to Ngamia. Drilling concluded 360 meters shallower than pre-drill estimates when the well encountered the basin bounding fault, which is interpreted to have cut out some 100 meters of prospective reservoirs.
Further away from the fault we expect to encounter the complete reservoir section and for reservoir thickness and quality to improve. The rig is now preparing to move to drill the Twiga-1 well, 30 km northeast in Block 13T along the western basin bounding fault on trend with Ngamia. Once this drilling has completed it is planned to use this rig to return to Ngamia-1 for the above mentioned flow testing.
Two additional rigs are being sourced, one for the Pai Pai prospect in Kenya Block 10A and one for the Sabisa prospect in the South Omo block in Ethiopia. These wells are expected to spud late in the third and the fourth quarters of 2012, respectively. Three seismic crews are now active in the Teritiary rift trend and a proposal to acquire 3D seismic over the Ngamia discovery is under consideration.
