Simba Energy Inc., Vancouver, BC, has signed an agreement with Bell Geospace to conduct a comprehensive airborne full-tensor gradiometry (FTG) survey on Block 2A in Kenya. The 30-day survey is expected to start in early May.
The program contemplates flying 6,044 line km over two target areas within Block 2A about 2,150 sq km over the central portion of the block covering the company’s earlier defined primary and secondary target areas south-southeast from the city of Wajir and within the southern extents of the Mandera basin; and 850 sq km along the block’s southern boundary over the eastern margins of the Anza basin.
Simba said it expects that data from the FTG survey will serve to provide for a more focused and cost effective 2D seismic well location targeting program planned for later this year.
The data from this FTG survey also will be combined with some additional 2D seismic data expected shortly from Taipan Resources Inc., which was recently granted permission to acquire limited 2D seismic on Block 2A. Simba said it begin interpretation of the processed 2D seismic data along with the FTG data once they are received.
Simba was awarded Block 2A by Kenya’s Ministry of Energy in 2011 (OGJ Online, Aug. 3, 2011). A year later, the company acquired 750 sq km of passive seismic (OGJ Online, Apr. 16, 2012).
Simba noted that Africa Oil has spudded an exploration well at the Sala prospect in Block 9, just to the northwest of Block 2A’s northwest boundary, that should complete soon and could provide insight into the prospectivity for a “string of pearls” accumulation along the eastern margins of the Anza basin.
Taipan’s Badada (formerly Pearl) prospect, along the Anza basin’s eastern margin lying on the southern boundary of Block 2A, will be drilled later in the year, Simba added. In addition to this, in the southern part of Block 1, directly to the north of Block 2A, Afren has identified six leads and prospects with plans to spud a first well at its Khorof prospect later this year.
Block 2A's concession area overlies the southern extents of both the Anza basin, one of the largest tertiary-age rift basins in the East African rift system and with a geological setting similar to the South Lokichar basin where Africa Oil and Tullow have recently made significant discoveries; as well as the Mandera basin where the Tarbaj-1 well and nearby oil seeps in the south of Block 1 have already confirmed the presence of hydrocarbons within Upper Triassic and Jurassic formations.
