The government intends to rewrite the energy policy and review the petroleum, exploration and geothermal acts to reflect the newly acquired high value status.
"We are no longer a frontier country and we definitely will attract better terms, unlike previously when we went around the world begging explorers to come and prospect for oil in Kenya," said Martin Heya, the Commissioner for Petroleum, at the ministry of Energy.
He was speaking at opening of a two day First East Africa Upstream petroleum energy Summit in Nairobi. Exploration licenses are currently valued at 3000 dollars flat rate.
The license holder pays five dollars per square kilometer annually in the first two years, $10 for each of the subsequent years and $15 in the final two of the six year period within which explorers leave if unsuccessful, or negotiate for an extension.
The new laws will also shift licencing of oil blocks from the current open door policy where a committee decides on who to licence to operate in a oil block, to bidding rounds in which the highest bidder wins.
Announcements in March this year by British explorer Tullow Oil that it had struck potentially the largest oil find in its history at Ngamia-1 well on Block 10BB in Turkana has spurred a scramble for Kenya's oil prospects. Commercial viability of the well is yet to be determined.
Tullow Oil and Australia's Pancontinental Oil & Gas offshore license announced gas find in the shallow target at Mbawa-1 in Malindi, rising hopes that more could be lying there undetected. 23 operators hold the rights for 45 licensed of the total of 46 oil blocks in Kenya, but this is also bound to change.
"We are planning to re-construct mapping of some of the blocks to open up explorations to others in the overwhelming waiting list of firms eager to have a piece of the action," said Hudson Andambi, the acting Senior Principle Superintending geologist of Petroleum at the ministry of energy.
The re-sizing and fresh demarcation will be derived from relinquished 25 percent acreage as a requirement contained in the production sharing contracts.
According to Heya these policy changes will include downstream energy policy through which marketing of oil and operations in the sector will be regulated.