The Kenyan government has approved a plan to start producing crude oil, with a goal of reaching up to 4,000 barrels a day, as the nation seeks to tap its newly discovered oil resources.
As part of the plan, infrastructure would be upgraded to allow trucks to ferry the oil to the main port in Mombasa, the president’s communications department said in a statement last week.
The plan has the potential to deliver as much as 2,000 barrels a day in the second half of 2017, according to Tullow Oil, which is doing the exploration.
Tullow discovered oil in Kenya in 2012 and estimates there are 750-million barrels of recoverable resources.
The cabinet also approved the development of a pipeline from the exploration fields in the country’s north to Lamu, where Kenya is constructing a second port, which in the future will be the main source of transportation for crude oil from Kenya.
Kenya’s moves come as global oil prices are recovering from record lows.
Brent crude futures ended Thursday at $46.04 a barrel on the ICE Futures US exchange, up nearly 24% for the year to date.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Thursday that a long-standing oversupply was waning even as the world’s leading exporters pump at record levels.
WSJ