Zarara Oil and Gas through its subsidiary, Midway Resources International (MRI) in Kenya, plans to commence drill operations in Block L4 by Q1 of 2017.This is coming after the company suspended its previous schedule of Q2, 2016.

Zarara before now concluded the Environmental Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) field work in both Kenya’s blocks L4 and L13 as it gets ready to spud the Pate-2 well on the Pate-1 natural gas discovery. The ESIA was performed by ESF consultants who were commissioned by Tullow Oil to carry out ESIA and stakeholder engagements in Kenya’s Block 12A.“ESF Consultants comes on board to support Zarara Oil and Gas in acquisition of permitting requirements for their exploration drilling campaign in Kenya Blocks L4 and L13,” ESF revealed.

Zarara Oil and Gas is at the moment performing these activities under an 18-month licence extension through to June 2017, to the First Additional Exploration Period on both the block L4 and L13 production sharing contracts.These blocks are estimated to be potential prone acreages and are expected to have 1.5TcF unrisked volumes of gas in place which is enough to support a 900MW combined cycle gas turbine power station for 25 years, Oil News Kenya reports.

Kenya MRI through its parent company, Zarara Oil & Gas Limited, owns a 75% working interest and operatorship in two production sharing contracts over Blocks L4 and L13 alongside its partner Swiss Oil Holdings Ltd with 15% interest while the remaining 10% is a carried interest of the Government of Kenya.

Anita Fatunji