Page 14 - AfrOil Week 39 2022

AfrOil PROJECTS & COMPANIES AfrOil

Mukuyu, formerly known as Muzarabani, is the two additional licence areas adjacent to SG 4571
larger of the two fields within SG 4571, Invic- earlier this year – namely, Exclusive Prospecting
tus’ original licence area. SG 4571 is also home Orders 1848 and 1849, or EPO 1848 and EPO
to the Msasa field, which may hold 1.05 trillion 1849. Together with SG 4571, EPO 1848 and
cubic feet (29.73 bcm) of gas and 44mn barrels EPO 1849 cover “the entire conventional oil and
of condensate. gas play in the Cabora Bassa basin,” the Austral-
Invictus also acquired exploration rights to ian company said on August 17. ™

CNOOC Uganda receives first shipment

of parts for drilling rig at Kingfisher

UGANDA CHINA National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) by CNOOC, and shipped to Mombasa from
has received its first shipments of parts for the port of Yantai on Bohai Bay. CNOOC has
LR8001, a rig that will be installed at the King- described the rig as an automated silent unit
fisher block near Lake Albert, and will receive outfitted with industry-leading technologies,
the remaining parts in time to assemble and including a pipe column automation system,
install the unit by mid-December, the Petroleum a well site de-noising control system and a
Authority of Uganda (PAU) has said. zero-discharge system.
PAU said in a statement on September 26 The Chinese company will use the rig to drill
that it had been briefed on the delivery of rig up to 31 horizontal wells from a single drilling
parts to the drilling site by Chen Zhuobiao, the pad at Kingfisher. These wells are slated to yield
director of CNOOC Uganda. Chen explained, up to 40,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude dur-
it reported, that the Chinese company was hav- ing the first phase of production at the block.
ing the remaining parts delivered to the Kenyan Kingfisher is part of the upstream compo-
port of Mombasa by ship and then transferred to nent of the Lake Albert Development Project
container trucks for overland shipment to Mal- (LADP), a $10bn initiative that aims to monet-
aba, a town on the Ugandan border. ise Uganda’s as-yet untapped crude oil resources.
Once all of the parts arrive, he informed LADP calls for CNOOC and TotalEnergies
PAU’s Executive Director Ernest Rubondo, (France) to bring the Kingfisher and Tilenga
they will be assembled so CNOOC Uganda can blocks on stream in 2025 and anticipates that
launch test drilling operations. Commercial yields from these sites near Lake Albert will
drilling is due to begin in 2025, he added. eventually top 250,000 bpd.
Rubondo hailed the Chinese company’s pro- Most of these volumes will be exported via
gress toward development, saying: “This rig has the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP),
been shipped right in time for the planned drill- a 1,443-km pipeline from Hoima in western
ing that begins in December. Commendable!” Uganda to Tanga, a port on Tanzania’s Indian
Parts and equipment for CNOOC Uganda’s Ocean coast. The conduit will be heated to com-
LR8001 rig are being built by China Oilfield pensate for the waxy nature of the oil, and it will
Services Ltd (COSL), which is majority-owned have a throughput capacity of 216,000 bpd. ™

Commercial drilling is due to begin at Kingfisher in 2025 (Image: PAU)

P14 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 39 29•September•2022