Zarara Oil & Gas Ltd., a subsidiary of Midway Resources International, continues spudding the Pate-2 natural gas well on its production sharing contracts on Blocks L4 and L13 near Port Lamu in Kenya. A drilling rig from Drilling Spares & Services Ltd. is drilling and running 20-in. casing for Pate-2 and Pate-3 wells to 300 m. Zarara also has a contract for the Sakson Rig SK604 owned by Sakson Drilling & Oil Services DMCC to complete drilling each well to a target depth of 4,500 m.
Kenya is ahead of the region with drilling and trucking oil. Zarara is likely to confirm commercial gas finds in Lamu in 2019. Tullow oil has already began trucking thousands of barrels of crude with an expected early export plan already in place. Uganda is yet to produce oil despite commercial finds.
The current drilling campaign follows a 4-year evaluation program by Zarara involving 2D seismic over the original Pate-1 discovery area. Royal Dutch Shell PLC and BP PLC drilled Pate-1 in 1970. That well was plugged and abandoned because of downhole gas-control issues and for lack of a regional gas market at the time.
Pate-2 was stepped out 300 m from the Pate-1 well. Targets are the basal Kipini sandstones that flowed gas in Pate-1 as well as Paleocene-Cretaceous sands. Zara Chief Operating Officer Austen Titford of Zarara’s Nairobi office said Pate-2 confirmed the original Pate-1 discovery. Pate-3 will be drilled directionally from the same site as Pate-2. Kenya’s government currently holds 10% carried interest. If commercial, the government has rights to another 10% interest. Zarara holds the remainder.
