Kenya to Undertake 3D Seismic Over the Shallow Offshore Area Lamu Basin

The Ministry of Petroleum and Mining will undertake 3D seismic acquisition over the shallow offshore area Lamu basin for the purpose of promoting the area for petroleum exploration and development through competitive round scheduled for 2021.

According to the State Department for Petroleum under the Ministry of Petroleum and Mining the government is seeking for a contractor to undertake the acquisition over the shallow waters which may have an aerial coverage of 32000 sq. km.

The contractor will also be tasked with reprocessing historically existing acquired seismic and its integration with other data sets.

Further the contractor is expected to capacity build personnel from the State Department for Petroleum and the National Oil Corporation in the acquisition, processing and interpretation of the 3D data including economic modelling as well as help in the upgrade of the existing National Petroleum Data Center for utilization as a platform for data marketing.

This is the second time the government has asked for EOIs targeting 3D seismic acquisition over the shallow offshore Lamu basin with the National Oil Corporation of Kenya has invited the same in 2015 in preparation of an open licensing round earlier scheduled for the year 2017.

2015 Map for the planned 3D seismic acquisition over the shallow offshore Lamu basin

The 2015 EOI had said the 3D acquisition and processing could include the deep water blocks held by ANADARKO (L12 & L11A) and CAMAC (L27 & L28) and possibly L25 and L26 depending on prior commitments being made by the licensees’.

It is not currently clear as to which blocks will be covered by the 3D seismic with various blocks to the north of the offshore Lamu basin in contention with Somalia.

The international open tender titled MOPM/SDP/EOI/07/2018-2019 closes on 23rd April 2019.

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