Uganda's Oil Reserves May Rival Saudi's

Do you need to find oil? Forget Petrobras. Just send B. Cole out for it (thanks!).

It can be snooped out here.

Uganda's oil reserves could be as much as that of the Gulf countries, a senior official at the US Department of Energy has said.

Based on the test flow results encountered at the wells so far drilled and other oil numbers, Ms. Sally Kornfeld, a senior analyst in the office of fossil energy went ahead to talk about Uganda's oil reservoirs in the same sentence as Saudi Arabia.

"You are blessed with amazing reservoirs. Your reservoirs are incredible. I am amazed by what I have seen, you might rival Saudi Arabia," Kornfeld told a visiting delegation from Uganda in Washington DC.

[...]

According to data so far aggregated since the first discovery was made by Australian prospector Hardman Resources (now taken over by Tullow) in June 2006, Uganda has established reserves at 3.5 million barrels of oil per day.

Experts in oil exploration say this could be just a tip of the iceberg.
The sites are still building pressure and production might well exceed the current figures if what has happened elsewhere like Angola is anything to go by.

Mr. Aidan Heavy, Tullow Oil's chief executive officer revealed early in the year that they assigned a dedicated team of experts to deliver a commercial development plan for the entire basin.

In April last year, Tullow embarked on what it termed as a major drilling campaign in the Butiaba area around Lake Albert targeting an overall reserve potential in excess of a billion barrels.

The Butiaba campaign was preceded by successes in two drilling campaigns in the Kaiso-Tonya area and the Kingfisher field and all these have been 100% successes so far.

The Butiaba campaign has thrown up successes but the two biggest so far have been the Buffalo-Giraffe wells - described as "one of the largest recent onshore oil discoveries in Africa".

[...]

As Kornfeld marveled at Uganda's oil finds, she was quick to add that for the country to benefit from the oil and gas resources but also avoid the pitfalls of oil producing countries like Nigeria, it is extremely important to set up strong governance structures.

Kornfeld and the other United States officials said they are ready to help Uganda's nascent oil and gas sector with anything including the key environmental issues that are crucial to the efficient management of oil and gas.

"Anything you might want us to help you with we will and we have a lot of expertise in environmental issues relating to oil and gas," Kornfeld
said.

- Brewskie