British Oil Company, Tullow Oil, announced it has stopped trucking oil from its Kenyan fields on Wednesday. According to Chief Executive Paul McDade, Tullow Oil has stopped works on its Kenyan oil fields and it’s trucking operations to move the crude to the Port of Mombasa due to security concerns.
The local people used the oil trucking operations as leverage to demonstrate to the Government of Kenya that the security situation on the ground had to improve. However, Tullow expects to be back in operations again once the security on the ground improves. The company said they expect to be back in operations again and the trucks moving in near future.
In early June 2018, Tullow began the transfer of stored crude oil to Mombasa, by road. The EOPS would transport oil produced from injection and production testing at the Ngamia and Amosing fields and the scheme will build up to ~2,000 bopd gross production. Tullow entered Kenya in 2010, after signing agreements with Africa Oil and Centric Energy to gain a 50% operated interest in five onshore licences. Tullow currently has a 50% interest in Blocks 10BA, 10BB, 12A, 13T & 100% in Block 12B.
The UK petroleum explorer Tullow revealed in July plans to drill 300 oil wells in Turkana Kenya, the same area where it’s currently trucking crude from. The London-based company paid government of Sh64.6 million in license fees and infrastructure improvement payments in 2017. The Ngamia-1 exploration well in Kenya marked the start of a significant programme of drilling activities across the acreage. In 2012, the Ngamia-1 well successfully encountered over 200 metres of net oil pay, the second East Africa onshore tertiary rift basin opened by Tullow. This has since been followed by further exploration success in the South Lokichar Basin at the Amosing, Twiga, Etuko, Ekales-1, Agete, Ewoi, Ekunyuk, Etom, Erut and Emekuya oil accumulations.
