14 July 2012, Sweetcrude, NAIROBI – Kenya’s Energy Minister, Kiraitu Murungi, says the country has leased out all of its existing oil blocks to exploration companies.
He said the government has given out the remaining four blocks to international companies, including America’s Apache Corporation Anadarko, France’s Total SA and China’s CNOOC.
“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,” Mr. Murungi said on the sidelines of the launch of the Oil and Gas Summit scheduled to start in November, according to loal reports.
Apache Corporation 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,” Murungi said.
In March, London-listed Tullow Oil Plc announced it had encountered oil in its Ngama-1 well in northern Kenya, expected to be the largest oil find in East Africa so far. It is the country’s first oil discovery.
