ERHC still hopeful of first well in Kenya’s Block 11A by March 2016

Kenya’s Block 11A joint venture partner ERHC says the contracting parties plan to spud the first well at the Tarach-1 prospect by the end of the first quarter of 2016 in its latest update.

The Tarach-1 prospect located at the central part of the Tarach basin is a three-way structural closure trapping against a North – South trending normal fault.

“The contracting parties plan to spud the first well at the Tarach-1 prospect by the end of the first quarter of 2016,” says the company in the latest update.

The seismic data also shows that the basin’s stratigraphy which is believed to be Tertiary/Cretaceous age could be similar to the Lokichar basin 200 km to the southeast of Block 11A, where significant discoveries have been made with over 600 million barrels of 2C contingent resources.

The decision was based on interpretation of 1,086.6 kilometers of 2D seismic data acquired by CEPSA Kenya Limited (a wholly owned affiliate of Compañía Española de Petróleos, S.A.U.  CEPSA (the operating partner) and ERHC on the Block with the exploration team considering the Tarach prospect as the most robust mapped prospect.

The mean estimate of oil prospective unrisked resources for the prospect is 65 million barrels with the mean unrisked prospective resources of all prospects and leads in Block 11A totals 645 million barrels.

The two partners had earier said that contingent upon the results of Tarach-1, they might decide to drill a second exploratory well, the Egole-1 a four-way rollover closure onto a Northwest – Southeast trending fault plain with mean prospective resources of 101 million barrels of oil, to follow shortly thereafter.

ERHC holds a 35 percent interest in Block 11A while CEPSA has a 55 percent interest.