Following a meeting with international oil and gas majors, Kenyan State House has announced that the President Uhuru Kenyatta will flag off the first shipment of oil from Lokichar in Turkana County on 3 June 2018
The announcement comes after the State House conducted a meeting with Africa-focused global oil and gas companies including Tullow Oil, Africa Oil Corporation (AOC) and Total, along with the other senior officials in the government.
The statement addressed the implementation of East African nation’s Early Oil Pilot Scheme (EOPS) which aims to acknowledge the importance of oil as a critical factor in shaping Kenya’s economy. Under the scheme, the Turkana County is expected to produce about 2,000 bopd from the existing wells and transport the crude to Mombasa.
As reported in the Capital News, Kenyatta said that the shipping of oil from Lokichar is important for the country, especially for the community in the producing area.
During the meeting, Tullow, AOC and Total were reported to extend their support to the government of Kenya in implementing the Early Oil Pilot Scheme.
Apart from developing its downstream sector to run a smooth transport of oil and gas products, the East African country is taking initiatives to explore new oil and gas blocks. In early April 2018, National Oil Corporation of Kenya (NOCK) signed a MoU with the US-based global oilfield services company Schlumberger to explore new oil blocks to further boost its oil and gas industry.
Recently, Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) has revealed plans to build US$125mn facilities to handle and store liquefied-petroleum-gas (LPG) to increase the use of cooking-gas in the East African country.
