Intelligence News on Tullow Oil abandoning Drilling Ngamia-1 Well in Kenya
In a dramatic move and announcement, Tullow Oil has stopped drilling Ngamia 1 oil well in Lokichar basin of the Turkana area of Kenya where it struck oil early March 2012, the company has confirmed.
Intelligence reports on the situation signals a tactical move by the British oil Company with a good record of success in the region.
Tullow Oil reported hitting a geological formation just 400 meters from the target depth forcing it to halt operations on the well and opting to move to the Twiga-1 well instead.
This geographic complexity highlighted by Tullow Oil signals a shift in both Tullow Oil and Government of Kenya policy on the sensitive economic activity.
It is a very particular tactical move since the information Tullow Oil is providing rather projects progress in the objective with the local operations manager hinting testing of commercial viability besides citing specific parameters used to determine the latter, such as distance and global market prices.
Tullow Oil may have had struck oil with commercial viability but local community lobbying might have raised alarm forcing the government to issue a directive for alternative measures to avoid sabotage on the very important project.
Tullow Oil will start appraising the initial results on the well where the first Kenyan oil discovery was made to ascertain commercial viability besides start spudding the other well, Twiga 1.
Security reasons are primary in this move and the Government of Kenya is very concerned hence the move to assess the commercial viability as incentives to counter risks are sought besides mitigation of the current security risks on the drilling site.
