Africa Oil’s independent assessment completed

Africa Oil Corp. has announced that an independent assessment of the Company's Contingent Resources in the South Lokichar Basin located in Blocks 10BB and 13T in Kenya has been completed by DeGolyer and MacNaughton Canada Limited (DMCL).

The estimated gross 2C un-risked resources in the South Lokichar Basin, Kenya have increased by 150 million bbls (or 24%) to 766 million bbls of oil (development pending: 754 million bbls and development un-clarified: 12 million bbls).

The project

AOC and its JV partners have completed a substantial exploration and appraisal programme across eight discoveries within the South Lokichar Basin, northwest Kenya.

Pre-FEED engineering studies have been completed on the production facilities and crude oil pipeline export route. The main fields of the South Lokichar Basin will be developed using wells drilled from multi-well pads and using a secondary recovery waterflood scheme. Given the waxy nature of the reservoir fluids, heated water injection will be required in addition to artificial lift on the production wells to maximise oil recovery efficiency. A heated, insulated export pipeline will be required to transport crude oil to the loading facilities at the port of Lamu.

A draft field development plan was submitted to the Kenyan regulatory authorities in December 2015. An update to the field development plan is expected in 2016 with a target for government development approval and final investment decision (FID) in 2017.

Market access contingencies

Kenya has limited oil infrastructure and no export facilities currently in place. The discoveries in Blocks 10BB and 13T are remote and cannot be delivered to market without significant infrastructure investment.

The Lokichar Basin is in a remote part of Kenya, approximately 850 km from the most likely point of export at Lamu.

New build pipeline infrastructure and road upgrades will be required to permit field development and production export for these resources.

Although technical work has been completed by and on behalf of the Block 10BB/13T JV partners on crude oil export route options, there are presently no commercial agreements in place facilitate the pipelines construction or operation.

Pipeline tariffs have been estimated for the purposes of the economic evaluation based on pre-FEED cost estimates and forecasted production volumes for a regional export pipeline system. Pipeline tariffs may vary depending on achieving a regional or Kenya standalone pipeline solution.

Edited from source by Stephanie Roker

Read the article online at: https://www.worldpipelines.com/business-news/10052016/africa-oils-independent-assessment-completed/