New east African oil player, Kenya has partnered with Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil producer to help it build a sustainable framework for its premature energy industry while offering 46 newly discovered oil blocks to Nigerian investors as prospective concession deals to increase investment in the sector.
According to Business Day, Nigeria’s Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke made the disclosure adding that the partnership was one of the seven MoUs and bilateral Agreements signed by delegates of both countries at the maiden Nigeria-Kenya Investment Forum last week.
“Kenya knows that it only makes sense that we exchange agreement in cooperation to hand over knowledge, capabilities and experience learnt. They want various templates that we have formulated, including policies, processes and a sort of templates that form Petroleum Industry Bill among others,” Diezani Alison-Madueke said.
She added: “They are very keen that Nigerians operators in the upstream, midstream and downstream service sectors of the oil and gas industry look to Kenya as a burgeonis frontier for investments in the oil and gas sector.
“They are also very keen that we robustly support them in setting up the right framework, policies and processes and technology to help them drive the exploration activities.”
Nigerian industrialists and Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote who led the Nigerian delegate which included Forte Oil and Zenon Oil CEO Femi Otedola and Honeywell Group Chairman, Oba Otudeko, said a number of Nigerian investors would be willing to invest in the oil sector in Kenya.
In 2012, Africa Oil, a Canadian oil and gas company together with British explorer, Tullow Oil Plc discovered rich hydro-carbon reserves in Kenya. They put its estimate at 368 million barrels, a level capable of commercial exploitation.
