NAIROBI, Kenya
A US-based company has committed Sh3 billion to explore four oil blocks in Kenya covering a surface area of about 37,000 square kilometers. CAMAC Energy Incorporated Company – which is involved in exploration, development and production of oil and gas – will explore the four oil blocks.
Two of them (L27 and L28) are located in more than 3,000 meters of ultra-deep waters of the Indian Ocean in Lamu Basin. “This is quite significant considering that undertaking oil and gas exploration operations, particularly in deep waters, is very capital intensive and underlain with very high risk levels,” Mr Davis Chirchir, Energy and Petroleum Cabinet Secretary, said in a speech read on his behalf by Environment, Water and National Resources Cabinet Secretary Prof Judy Wakhungu, during the opening of CAMACs Kenyan offices at 9West Building, in Westlands, Nairobi.
The CAMAC investment comes at a time when the government, in its quest to attract foreign direct investments (FDI), has pledged to facilitate oil and gas companies in processing tax exemption for duty, Import Declaration Fees (IDF) and Value Added Tax (VAT) on goods, equipment and services they procure and/or import to accelerate oil and gas exploration programmes.
CAMAC Energy Inc. Chairman and CEO Dr Kase Lawal said: “The opening of the Kenyan offices signifies the company’s commitment in implementing the minimum work and expenditure obligations as stipulated in its four production sharing contracts for blocks L1B, L16, L27 and L28.” Mr Chirchir commended the CAMAC Board of Directors for its commitment to the massive investment besides the requirement to fulfill other non-cost recoverable financial obligations such as training, surface and community development fees.
“For CAMAC to endeavor to commit such level of funding in the four blocks is a clear manifestation of the confidence the company has in the country’s existing petroleum potential and institutions of governance,” said Mr Chirchir. Mr Chirchir underscored his ministry’s commitment to putting in place appropriate legal and regulatory frameworks in line with the provision of Kenya’s Constitution 2010 on natural resources.
CAMAC’s decision to open offices in Kenya comes against the backdrops of recent discovery of crude oil in two exploratory wells in the Tertiary Rift Basin in Turkana County and natural gas discovery in offshore well in Lamu Basin. Significantly, the opening of the Kenya offices will provide CAMAC with a reliable base from which it can conveniently place effective execution of its work programs in its licensed blocks. Also present during the opening of the offices was former Vice-President Moody Awori, former Energy minister, Kiraitu Murungi, Senate Speaker Ekwe Ethuro and US Ambassador to Kenya Robert Godec, among other dignitaries.
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