NAIROBI--Kenya has leased out all existing oil blocks to
exploration companies, the Daily Nation newspaper reports Friday
citing Energy Minister Kiraitu Murungi.
The government has given out the remaining four blocks to
international companies, including America's Apache Corp. (APA),
France's Total SA (TOT), Anadarko from the U.S. and China's CNOOC,
the daily cites Mr. Murungi as saying.
"All our 46 oil blocks, including the nine in the deep sea are
now contracted out and our offices are currently busy signing
production-sharing contracts. The role of the ministry now is to
follow up to ensure that the work programs are implemented," the
daily quoted Mr. Murungi as saying Wednesday on the sidelines of
the launch of the Oil and Gas Summit scheduled to start in
November.
It wasn't immediately possible to obtain a comment from the
Energy Ministry.
Apache Corp. is expected to drill Kenya's first deep-water oil
well in three months, the daily said.
"We are going to deep-sea drilling again from September with
Apache about 60 kilometers east of Malindi. We are witnessing
significant interest since we struck oil in Turkana," Mr. Murungi
said.
In March, London-listed Tullow Oil PLC (TUWOY) announced it had
encountered oil in its Ngama-1 well in northern Kenya, which it
expects to be the largest oil find in East Africa so far.
Newspaper website:
http://www.nation.co.ke/business/news/Kenya+leases+all+oil+blocks++/-/1006/1452470/-/ilwokr/-/index.html
-By George Mwangi, contributing to Dow Jones Newswires; +254 735
781 853; gmwangi0@gmail.com