Kenya

By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Nov. 9 – CNOOC Ltd. has spudded the Bogal-1 exploration well on Block 9 in the Anza basin in northwestern Kenya.

Projected to 5,500 m on the 27,778-sq-km block, the well will test a new play concept that has the potential to change how technical workers have previously interpreted East Africa, said Africa Oil Corp., which has 30% working interest in Block 9.

Africa Oil said the Anza basin is a northwest-southeast trending rift basin along trend with the prolific Mesozoic play of southern Sudan. Anza is more than 580 km long and 150 km wide with a potential prospective area in excess of 50,000 sq km.

The basin is filled in places with more than 6,000 m of Mesozoic and Cenozoic sediments and locally by Plio-Pleistocene basalts. Bouger and residual gravity anomalies have highlighted several subbasins separated by intra-basin highs. Wells drilled on the block have proven the existence of natural gas and possibly oil.