Ethiopia: Tullow?s Drilling Crew to Arrive Within a Month

BY MAHLET MESFIN, 21 OCTOBER 2012

The Ministry of Mines (MoM) is facilitating the visa process for a drilling crew that includes around 20 experts mainly from Poland for the drilling process that Tullow Ethiopia B.V. is set to undertake in January 2013.

The drilling is to take place in South Omo Valley located in Southern Regional State, where the company has a concession right.

“It is still a tentative program,” Sinkinesh Ejigu, minister for MoM told Fortune. If the process takes time, the program might be changed.

Tullow, which will conduct its first drilling activity in Ethiopia, has subcontracted a Poland based drilling company to undertake the work.

Currently Tullow is undertaking a customs clearance for the drilling machineries that have already arrived at Djibouti Port two weeks ago, sources disclosed.

“We are trying to facilitate the process for the machineries to arrive at the company’s concession,” Sinkinesh said.

The drilling activity is not only the first for Tullow but also for the South Omo Block that the company acquired 50pc concession right of, on the area from the Canadian Africa Oil. It has later increase its concession up to 65pc.

Tullow has concession rights in 23 different countries including Kenya and Uganda. The drilling that it undertook in Kenya in January 2012, has brought it success.

The Full Tensor Gradiamametric Gravity Survey that tells the geological features of the area to be drilled is conducted by Chinese BGP Geo Service plc.

“Drilling is a very complicated process and hence it is difficult to predict the results,” a geological expert at the ministry told Fortune.

The senior managers of Tullow however, have already informed to higher Ethiopian government officials that the area is rich in oil reserve, which might even be larger than what was discovered in Kenya and Uganda.

However, Sinkinesh preferred to say, ‘we will cross our finger and pray” when Fortune previously asked her about the possible prospects.

The ministry that has collected 12.6 million dollars from petroleum works in the 2011/12 fiscal year has collected 40,500 dollars during the first quarter, achieving 2.4pc of the targeted 1.66 million dollar, according to sources. http://allafrica.com/stories/201210230039.html