Exploration of oil in Turkana Kenya on course

Exploration of oil in Turkana County is on course.  Cabinet Secretary for Petroleum and Mining John Munyes confirmed the report and said that the government and partners are committed to getting enough oil in Turkana for commercialization.

“We are trying to look for funds for the construction of the pipeline and soon we will get a partner to build the pipeline from Turkana to Lamu with all accessories to transport oil. It’s an easy task, with the support of Africa oil and Tullow oil we want to try more than 300 wells of oil in Turkana North and central to see if we can get enough oil for commercialization purposes,” said Cs Munyes.

Kenya discovered commercial oil in 2012 in its Lokichar basin, which Tullow Oil estimates contains an estimated 560 million barrels in proven and probable reserves. Since 2012 then, the country has struck 750 million barrels of commercially viable oil, with ongoing exploration showing that the number could potentially increase to over one billion barrels.

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Trucking of oil

The Cabinet secretary said that they have already done trucking of oil from Turkana to Lamu whereby 2,000 barrels were transported per day and they are now targeting 80,000 barrels to be transported per day for Kenya to start getting profit from oil proceeds. The market of Turkana oil was tested and found out to be marketable.

“After the testing of Turkana oil, we want to make it commercially viable by putting up (infrastructure) pipeline that will enable the transportation of Oil from Lokichar oil basin to Lamu for export. However, we have a challenge, we need Sh500 billion for the infrastructure that will enable the transportation of Oil from Lokichar oil basin to Lamu. That’s the money that the ministry doesn’t have, we don’t have to lose hope we have designed the project and it’s ready,” said CS Munyes.

The pipeline is projected to be 821 km long and will transport around 80,000 barrels of oil per day from the Lokichar oilfields in Northern Kenya to the Lamu seaport. It will cut across, namely Turkana, Samburu, Isiolo, Meru, Garissa and Lamu.