Kenya offers 46 oil blocks to Nigerian investors

Kenyan authority has reportedly offered its 46 newly-discovered oil blocks to interested Nigerians to prospect for the development of the sector. Nigeria’s Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, disclosed to reporters that the offer of the oil wells was parts of the outcome of the dialogue group preceding the Nigeria-Kenya Investment Forum held in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. Alison-Madueke was on the entourage of President Goodluck Jonathan who concluded a three-day state visit to Kenya on Saturday with host President, Uhuru Kenyatta, presiding over the Forum. The Forum, held at the Intercontinental Hotel, Nairobi, had in attendance more than 500 prominent investors from both countries. The minister said that beyond giving the opportunity to Nigerian investors to acquire the oil wells, Kenya also sought Nigeria’s assistance in the formulation of the right policies and frame-work to manage the sector.

  “It is well known now that Kenya had recently discovered hydro-carbon reserves and they are very keen to move quite aggressively in terms of exploration activities.

  “They felt that as sister African country, Nigeria having many years of oil exploration and production, it only makes sense that we exchange agreement in co-operation to hand over knowledge, capabilities and experience learnt. 

  “They seek various templates that we have formulated, including policies, processes and a sort of templates that form Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), among others.

“We also looked at areas surrounding Nigeria’s investment possibilities where we think that Nigerian business men and women could come into the oil and gas sector in Kenya.

  “They are very keen that Nigerian operators in the upstream, midstream and downstream service sectors of the oil and gas industry look to Kenya as a burgeoning frontier for investments in the oil and gas sector.

  “They are also very keen that we robustly support them in setting up the right frame-work, policies and processes and technology to help them drive the exploration activities,” she said.

  The minister said that among the seven MoUs and bilateral agreements signed by both countries was that on oil and gas, which spelt out details of the co-operation.

  Kenya recently announced that its oil resources met the threshold for commercial exploitation, raising the country’s hope of joining the league of oil producing nations.

 

Kenya kept in the dark on Gas Discovery

Kenyan authorities are angry with multinational oil and gas explorers who make major announcements of discovery of the hydrocarbons before informing the ministry of energy as outlined in their prospecting licenses as filing of returns. A ministry official said the announcement by Australia's Pancontinental Oil & Gas Company that natural gas had been found in Mbawa1 well was not communicated to the Kenya government.

This becomes the first natural gas discovery in Kenyan territory. A series of recent discoveries offshore Tanzania and Mozambique have raised interest among world's oil and gas exploration majors in the previously ignored East African region. Last month, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated that over 250 trillion cubic feet, or 7.1 trillion cubic metres of natural gas may lie off Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique, compared with 186 trillion cubic feet for Nigeria, Africa's biggest energy producer.

The company holds 15 percent share of the license for the block L8 prospect where the Mbawa1 well is located 70 kilometers off the Malindi coast. Pancontinental had the previous day requested Australia's securities exchange to halt trading of its shares to await a major announcement, which turned out to be the natural gas discovery in Kenya.

The announcement of Tullow oil's discovery of oil in Turkana at Nagmia well was also leaked to the foreign media outlets before the returns were filled with the ministry of energy.