Tullow Oil said 150,000 barrels of oil had been ferried to Mombasa for pre-shipment storage out of the targeted 500,000 barrels in what may yet derail the Ministry of Petroleum’s shipment target.
Trucking of crude oil from Turkana fields has only achieved 30 percent of its March target volumes for the second shipment overseas.
British Oil Explorer Tullow Oil now said 150,000 barrels of oil had been ferried to Mombasa for pre-shipment storage out of the targeted 500,000 barrels in what may yet derail the Ministry of Petroleum’s shipment target.
Tullow Kenya Managing Director Martin Mbogo said trucking remains suspended after sections of roads in Turkana were washed away by heavy rains, and its remains unclear when it will resume.
“Over 150,000 barrels is available at the Mombasa storage tanks as at the beginning of December. However, due to the recent and ongoing heavy rainfall across Kenya, some sections of the A1 highway have been washed away,” said Mr Mbogo.
“As a result, Tullow has temporarily suspended Early Oil Pilot Scheme trucking as a precautionary safety measure. We are assessing the situation and will resume trucking as soon as it is safe to do so.”
The volume represents just below a third of what is expected with the trucking having been on for more than four months, meaning it may be hard to meet the target even if the trucking resumed now.
Tullow uses a fleet of 100 specialised tankers to lift 2,000 barrels per day over the 1,000 kilometres in what the Kenya Civil Society Platform on Oil and Gas described as a ‘multibillion loss making experiment’ in 2016.
Tullow and the government are using the early shipments to test the market and to provide invaluable data and experience to be used in driving the oil business at the development stage.
The heavy rains, which have made most roads in Turkana impassable, add to another hurdle the early Oil Pilot Scheme has been going through. Last year Tullow was forced to halt the trucking for a month after the local community protested demanding that the State beef up security along the Turkana-Baringo border, recover stolen livestock and assure them of their share of jobs and tenders in oil operations.
President Uhuru Kenyatta flagged off the first consignment of crude from Mombasa in August after a Chinese state-owned oil multinational won the bid to buy the 250,000 barrels at $12 million.
ChemChina (UK) Ltd, which is the oil trading arm of ChemChina Petrochemical, engages in crude oil trading, storage and procurement for ChemChina’s refinery companies based in Beijing.
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