Oil and gas explorer, Tullow Oil, on Thursday raised its resources estimates for the new South Lokichar oil basin in Kenya.

This move follows “flow tests” at its Ngamia and Twiga South wells.

Tullow has realised that a flow rate could actually be 5,000 barrels a day based on Ngamia-1 and Twiga-South-1 wells drilling.

According to Tullow’s evaluation, there are 250 million barrels of oil in these wells and these are likely to surge further in the next couple of years.

Additionally, the London-listed firm said it had found new oil flows at Kenya’s Etuko-1 well and commercial manufacturing of oil could start soon.

It is believed that oil discoveries in Kenya, together with oil wells found in Uganda and gas discoveries in Tanzania and Mozambique, highlight east Africa’s ability to develop into a key oil and gas producer in the next half a decade.

“(Increased resource estimate and new oil discoveries) establishes the region as a major new emerging oil province that could shortly surpass Uganda and reach commerciality too,” Reuters quoted an unidentified Morgan Stanley analyst as saying.

Reuters also quoted a Macquarie analyst Mark Wilson, as saying: “Kenya is getting the company back on track to following up basin opening success with basin commercialising success.”