Tullow Oil has announced plans to resume its exploration and appraisal drilling at the South Lokichar Basin in December, a senior official has revealed.

“A recent 3-D survey shows additional upside potential,” Tim O'Hanlon (photo), vice president for Tullow Oil Africa, said.

Tullow, Africa Oil Corporation and Maersk Oil hold around 750 million barrels of crude and an upside potential of 1 billion barrels in the basin, straddling Blocks 10BB and 13T in Turkana County. Tullow Oil has its main production assets in Ghana. The company also has exploration acreage in Mauritania, Namibia and Zambia.

O'Hanlon said Tullow Oil was targeting an export pipeline capable of taking 200-230,000 bpd in Uganda where it had 1.7 billion barrels of oil to develop to Tanga port, in Tanzania. He added that front-end engineering and design of the pipeline will commence in 2017 and a final investment decision was expected in 2018, RigZone reports.

Anita Fatunji