Kenya has joined the ranks of East African countries which have discovered natural gas recently, after a consortium led by US based  oil and gas explorer Apache Corporation announced today the discovery of gas offshore Kenya.

Apache has been drilling the Mbawa-1 exploration well in the L8 licence area in Lamu Basin about 85 kilometers off the Kenyan coast. The Mbawa-1 exploration well has been drilled to a depth of 2,553 metres and has encountered approximately 52 metres of net gas pay in porous Cretaceous sandstones.

Apache owns a 50 percent stake in Mbawa I and is the operator of the offshore Block L8 Licence in partnership with Australian firms Origin Energy Limited and Pancontinental Oil and Gas Limited which hold 20 percent and 15 percent respectively. British explorer Tullow Oil Plc also holds 15 percent of the acreage.

“This gas discovery is very promising and it is the first ever substantive hydrocarbon discovery offshore Kenya. We are delighted to prove that there is a working hydrocarbon system offshore Kenya. Further work continues to evaluate the size of the discovery, “ said Barry Rushworth, chief executive and director of Pancontinental .

The Mbawa well is estimated to have between 2.2 trillion and five trillion cubic feet of potential recoverable gas and a mean resource value of 200 million to 300 million barrels. “A gas discovery on prognosis in the shallowest objective at Mbawa-1 is an encouraging start to our East African Transform Margin exploration campaign.

The on-going drilling remains on course to test for any deeper oil potential within this gas prone region,” said Angus McCoss, exploration director at Tullow Oil, in a statement.

The Mbawa-I well will now be drilled to a total depth of 3,275 metres. “With drilling continuing to a deeper exploration target, these interim results may be the first part of the story in this well, and they are certainly just the beginning of the main story of oil and gas exploration offshore Kenya.” added Pancontinental’s Rushworth.

This new gas find is major boost to East Africa’s pursuit of becoming a leading natural gas producer in the continent. Kenya now joins neighbours Tanzania and Mozambique which have discovered massive amounts of natural gas recently. Mozambique has about 130 trillion cubic feet reserves of liquefied natural gas (LNG).

According to the country’s Minerals minister Esperanca Bias Mozambique could earn $5.2 billion annually from natural gas by 2026. The country has developed a “Natural Gas Master Plan” that shows Mozambique could sustain the construction of 10 LNG plants in the next ten years and export gas to the Far East.

In Tanzania, Ophir Energy last week announced a big upgrade in the estimated resources in Block 1 of its Mzia discovery. “Additional seismic and petrophysical analysis has increased management estimates of in-place resource for the Upper Cretaceous Mzia discovery in Block 1 from the previously announced 2-6 trillion cubic feet to 4-9 trillion cubic feet,” the company said in a statement. Ophir Energy could build two LNG production terminals in Tanzania.

In June this year, Tanzania’s total estimated natural gas reserves tripled to as much as 28.7 trillion cubic feet after Norway’s largest oil and gas producer, Statoil, announced a second “high-impact” gas find off Tanzania’s Indian Ocean coast.

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