Oil explorer Zarara seeks to start Lamu offshore drilling
An offshore oil drilling rig. Zarara Oil & Gas will explore for gas in blocks L4 and L13 in Lamu County. PHOTO | FILE
Oil explorer Zarara Oil & Gas has signalled it will finally kick off drilling of an exploratory well at its offshore oil block in Lamu after securing an extension of its licence.
On Friday the National Environment Management Authority (Nema) invited the public to submit views for an environmental impact assessment report of the proposed gas exploratory drilling at blocks L4 and L13 in Lamu County.
“Nema invites members of the public to submit oral or written comments within thirty days from the date of publication of this notice to the Director- General, Nema, to assist the Authority in the decision-making process for this project,” said director-general Prof Geoffrey Wahungu.
Zarara, a fully-owned subsidiary of Midway Resources International (MRI), had said in disclosures filed with the London Stock Exchange early last year that it had been given an 18-month licence extension that will run to June 2017 for blocks L4 and L13.
It had earlier said it will be prospecting for natural gas in Lamu and, if successful, seek to use the resource in power generation.
“The extensions will enable Zarara to complete its preparation and drilling of Pate-2 well on the natural gas discovery in Lamu County,” the company said in January 2016.
“Zarara’s drilling strategy is to fully appraise the Pate natural gas discovery and then, in partnership with leading electrical power generation partners, undertake a phased development of up to 1,000MW of electricity generation capacity nearby at Port Lamu, the proposed southern terminal of the Lamu Port South Sudan Ethiopia Transport (Lappset) project.”
Exploration
Nema said in the notice that in the event that potentially commercial volumes of hydrocarbons are discovered, additional exploration wells or appraisal wells are likely to be drilled in the future to provide greater information on the likely nature and scale of hydrocarbon resources.
Zarara is the main operator on the two blocks with a 75 per cent stake, while Swiss Oil Holdings controls 15 per cent with the remaining 10 per cent being the carried interest by the Kenya government.
