Page 11 - AfrOil Week 10 2023

AfrOil POLICY AfrOil

The special audit report, which covered the Kenyans can know,” said Gachagua.
period between April 1, 2021, and June 30, 2022, In the audit report, the Auditor General
exposes how state officials embezzled million in reveals that the National Treasury engaged in
schemes that included irregular utilisation of blatant violations of the law in the utilisation
$175.3mn from the Petroleum Development of funds in the PDLF kitty during the previous
Levy Fund (PDLF), overpayment of OMCs and administration.
irregular advance sales prices stabilisation com- While the law stipulates that funds in the
pensation of $41mn. kitty can only be used on matters related to
The report also exposed irregular demurrage petroleum, including stabilising the local fuel
charges amounting to $24.8m passed to con- pump prices in instances of spikes occasioned
sumers through high pump prices and $17mn by high landed costs, the National Treasury dis-
in irregular administrative costs. bursed the funds to finance road construction
The audit report comes at a time when projects and many opaque projects not related
Gachagua is threatening to name former top to petroleum products.
officials who engaged in a looting spree during “Utilisation of the PDLF to fund road con-
the last months of the former region. In par- struction projects and transfers to the Ministry
ticular, he said that a staggering $186.2mn was of Energy was in violation of the PDLF Act, the
stolen between the time Kenya’s electoral body Petroleum Development Levy Order of 2020
announced Ruto as President-elect (on August and the PFM (Public Finance Management)
15, 2022) and the day he was sworn in (on Sep- Act,” states the audit report.
tember 13, 2022). With respect to irregular demurrage pay-
“In the next few days, I will be releasing ments to OMCs, the audit shows that $288,699
details of billions of shillings looted from pub- did not meet the criteria set out in the Transport
lic coffers in the last three months of the Uhuru and Storage Agreement for recovery through
administration. I will announce the ministers the pump as the vessels offloaded within the
and principal secretaries responsible so that provided three days. ™

PROJECTS & COMPANIES
Chariot says FEED work on Anchois natural

gas development project is complete

MOROCCO AIM-LISTED Chariot, a transitional energy
company focused on Africa, said on March 8
that it had finished front-end engineering and
design (FEED) work on the main parts of its
Anchois natural gas project offshore Morocco.
The project aims to facilitate the devel-
opment of Anchois, the company’s flagship
gas-bearing field, which lies within the Lixus
Offshore licence area. Chariot owns a 75%
equity stake in the block and is serving as oper-
ator, while the remaining 25% stake is assigned
to L’Office National des Hydrocarbures et des
Mines (ONHYM), the Moroccan government
agency that oversees and monitors the oil, gas
and mining industries.
Chariot began work on the FEED compo-
nent of the Anchois development project in
June 2022, and its final plan states that the ini- Chariot has a 75% stake in the Lixus Offshore licence area (Image: Chariot)
tial development programme will have three
separate components. The first of these will be a of underwater infrastructure – subsea umbili-
group of three subsea producer wells – including cals, risers and flowlines (SURF) and subsea
Anchois-2, a well that Chariot drilled last year. protection systems (SPS), Chariot said. This net-
These wells will have “multi-zone completions work will transferr hydrocarbons from offshore
to enable gas recovery across multiple stacked wells to onshore facilities via a subsea flowline
sands,” the company said. and can be scaled up to accommodate tie-backs
The second component consists of a network connecting additional wells, it added.

Week 10 09•March•2023 www. NEWSBASE .com P11