Canada’s Heritage Oil to drill 2 more Uganda wells
June 25th, 2007
Canada’s Heritage Oil Corp. will drill two more exploration wells in western Uganda in the next eight months, seeking a complete picture of reserves, the company said on Monday.
Heritage owns two concessions in a 50-50 partnership with UK-based Tullow Oil on Lake Albert’s eastern shores in Africa’s Great Rift Valley. Tullow says early estimates of the region’s reserves are between 100 million and 250 million barrels.
Heritage has drilled in one block to more than 3,000 meters and found high grade light crude flowing at 14,000 barrels per day.
Bryan Westward, the company’s Uganda manager, said more seismic surveys were being done on both blocks before another well was drilled in each: one in December and one next February.
“They will tell us exactly the reserves we have,” he told Reuters by telephone. “We know we have got 14,000 barrels. This will tell us for how many years we can pump out at that rate.”
Heritage was looking for a rig capable of drilling to a greater depth, he said, while 2D seismic results from the undrilled block looked “very encouraging.” He said 3D seismic work was underway in the block already boasting two wells.
Interest is growing in Uganda as a new frontier in the hunt for African oil. Tullow, which found crude in all five of its own wells, expects results from a sixth early next week.
If the companies find enough in the Albertine Basin, which spans Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo, they hope to export it via a pipeline to the Kenyan coast. They are also studying options for mini-refineries to address local demand.
Last week, Tullow said it had found up to 600 million barrels of high quality oil at a block in Ghana owned with Texas-based Anadarko Petroleum Corp. . Heritage also has exploration projects in Russia, Oman and Iraq.
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