By George Obulutsa
NAIROBI (Reuters) - British oil firm Afren plans to drill 13 wells on its blocks in east Africa, at a cost of at least $120 million in the next 18 to 24 months, a senior company executive said on Tuesday, highlighting increased exploration activity in the region.
Afren, whose main producing assets are in Nigeria and which also has assets in Kurdistan, has stakes in 11 blocks in Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Madagascar and Seychelles, where it is acquiring both 2D and 3D seismic data, Galib Virani, Afren associate director, told an east African oil and gas conference.
In Kenya, Afren is a partner in Block 10-A alongside British explorer Tullow Oil and Africa Oil , where they are drilling the Paipai-1 well, which has a planned total depth of 4,112 metres, in northern Kenya's Marsabit County.
"The drilling programme has started. We then have wells over the next 18 to 24 months on Tanga Block in Tanzania, on Madagascar, on Seychelles, on acreage in Ethiopia, on Block L17 and L18 in Kenya," Virani told Reuters on the sidelines of the conference.
"It's too early to decide, but we have a spend of at least $120 million on drilling," he said, adding these funds would come from internal company sources.
East Africa has become a hotbed of exploration after several petroleum discoveries in the area pushed the region into the international limelight, with big natural gas deposits found in Tanzania and Mozambique and oil in Uganda and Kenya.
However, Kenya has yet to determine whether it has commercially viable quantities of hydrocarbons.
Virani said Afren was concentrating on completing its drilling commitments before considering acquiring more blocks.
"We are predominantly oil-focused, so on all of our acreage, we are looking for oil plays. We have very large acreage positions across east Africa. We will selectively look, but the focus at the moment is delivering on the existing well programme," he told Reuters.
Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Seychelles all plan to offer new blocks for licensing in coming years.