NAIROBI (Halbeeg News) – Kenyan government is planning to construct over 800km long pipeline stretching between Lokichar and Lamu ahead of 2023 crude oil extraction.
The East Africa nation has just concluded
Front End Engineering Design (FEED) study for the $2 billion pipelines and launched a land survey paving the way for the commencement of the project.
“The government of Kenya, via the NLC, has gazetted the land required for the upstream development in Turkana and pipeline land surveys by the NLC began in the first week of July,” said British firm Tullow Oil in its latest trading update.
Surveying the pipeline route means Kenya is determined to commence construction of the 821 kilometre heated pipeline
According to Tullow, the recent signing of a legally binding head of terms has radiated confidence among the joint venture partners who are supposed to mobile $3 billion required to develop the oilfields in the South Lokichar basin in Turkana and build an export pipeline to Lamu.
“This represented a material and encouraging step forward which gives all parties confidence that the project will be robust at low oil prices,” noted Tullow.
According to Nairobi based media, The East Africa, due to the waxy nature of Kenya’s crude, the pipeline will be much more expensive to build and operate than a normal pipeline because the crude will need to be heated to 85 degrees along the line.
Kenya’s crude reserves are estimated at 500 million barrels with about 400 million considered recoverable.
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