More oil discovered in W Uganda

www.chinaview.cn 2008-09-10 00:22:35

    KAMPALA, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- Tullow Oil, a company exploring for oil in western Uganda announced on Tuesday that it had struck another oil deposit at Kigogole-1 exploration well in the Butiaba region in the Lake Albert Rift Basin.

    The London-based company said in a statement posted on its website that the well was drilled to a total depth of 616 meters and encountered two oil zones with a net pay of 10 meters.

    "Logging, downhole pressure testing and sampling has confirmed the presence of moveable light sweet oil in reservoirs just below 400 meters. This is the shallowest section where oil has been encountered in Uganda to date," it said.

    Aidan Heavey, the chief executive of Tullow said Kigogole-1 is the fifth successive discovery in the Butiaba region within the last five months.

    The company is now moving its operations to Block 1 to commence a three-well exploration drilling program.

    The Kigogole-1 announcement comes just days after the country's largest oil deposit, with a flow rate of 14,364 barrels of oil perday (bopd), was discovered by Heritage, another oil company drilling in western Uganda.

    The country will late next year embark on an early production scheme producing 4,000-5,000 bopd, which are to be refined into diesel, kerosene and heavy-fuel.

    The heavy fuel will be used to run a thermal plant which will produce 50-85MW that will be connected to the national grid to reduce the country's power shortage that has been crippling economy growth.

    The scheme will also be used as a pilot study before large scale commercial production of the country's potential 300 million barrels of oil starts.

    Meanwhile, Ugandan government has been urged again by civil society groups and residents in oil exploring area to publish the production sharing agreements.

    They said the government should avail the information including the cost of the early production scheme and the environmental impact assessment to encourage effective public participation in all the initiatives for effective oil management.

    Since the government signed production sharing agreements with oil exploration companies, details have never been availed to the public, creating suspicion about transparency.

    An environmental impact assessment for the early production scheme at Kaiso-Tonya was carried out. However, civil societies claim sufficient mitigation measures were not put in place




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