Lamu explorer says no commercial gas found

Gas drilling on Lamu’s Pate Island has been concluded without any discovery of commercial quality gas, the exploration firm has said.

The drilling that has been going on for the past one year was undertaken by Zarara Oil and Gas Limited, a subsidiary of Midway Resources International which is a Africa-focused oil and gas company.

The entire drilling exercise which is worth Sh2.5 billion started in April last year and was expected to be concluded by October of the same year.

Zarara Oil and Gas country manager Peter Nduru confirmed Monday that the company had drilled the Pate-2 Well to a total depth of 4,307 metres and penetrated the primary lower tertiary Kipini objective.

The drilled well was targeting the Pate sub-basin in the onshore Lamu-basin. Mr Nduru said the entire exercise took considerably longer than had been planned, partly because of difficult drilling conditions, including hard shales in the cap rock interval.

A statement from Midway Resources International indicated that high pressure during the drilling also delayed the process which had to be carefully managed to ensure safety.

“We have concluded gas drilling in Lamu’s Pate-2 well. The drilling to date has confirmed the presence of relatively higher pressure natural gas in several reservoir intervals within the Kipini formation. Some 23 metres of net pay gas has been intersected. However, a clear gas water contact has not yet been identified during drilling or logging. As a result, the well is considered unlikely to be commercial on a standalone basis and it will, therefore, be plugged and abandoned, although it will be capable of re-entry if desired,” said Mr Nduru.

In a statement, Midway Resources International Chief Executive Officer Peter Washington, however, revealed that the recent well results confirmed a working petroleum system in the Pate sub-basin of the Lamu basin.