NAIROBI, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- Kenya plans to export 500,000 barrels of crude oil, its second consignment, in February 2020, a government official said on Tuesday.
Brian Muriuki, strategic advisor, ministry of petroleum and mining told journalists in Nairobi that the second batch of exports will be larger than the first sale of 200,000 barrels.
"We want to sell crude oil in bigger consignments in future in order to achieve better prices at the international oil markets," Muriuki said.
The east African nation is currently producing 2,000 barrels of oil daily from its oil fields in Lokichar basin in northwest Kenya.
Muriuki said that oil is being transported by road to the port of Mombasa under the Early Oil Pilot Scheme (EOPS) which seeks to ascertain the demand for Kenya's oil in the global markets.
"Good performance of Kenya's oil in the international market will also give confidence to the oil exploring firms to scale up investment to achieve commercial production," Muriuki added.
The oil exports are from Blocks 13T and 10BB which hold an estimated 560 million barrels of recoverable oil deposits and are owned by the joint venture partners that comprise the government, Tullow Oil, Africa Oil and Total.
Muriuki said that before the final investment decision on whether to begin commercial oil production is reached, the pending land issues where the proposed some 820 km crude oil pipeline from Lokichar to the port of Lamu will have to be solved amicably by all relevant stakeholders.
He observed that the oil firms have so far spent approximately 220 billion shillings (about 2.2 billion U.S. dollars) for the EOPS but a further three billion dollars will be required to ensure Kenya begins production of 70,000 barrels of oil per day.
Kenneth Kamau, environmental advisor at Tullow said that the environmental and social impact assessment report will be completed by the end of 2019.
Kamau noted that the report will be submitted to the government in order to acquire an environmental license to proceed with commercial oil production.
