Natural Gas Found in Uganda

KAMPALA, Aug. 6 (Xinhua) -- Tullow Oil, a company exploring for oil in western Uganda, announced on Wednesday that it had struck oil and natural gas deposits at Kasamene-1 exploration well, located in Butiaba region in the Lake Albert Rift Basin.

The London-based company said in a statement on its website that exploration at Kasamene-1 encountered over 31 metres of net oil pay and at least six metres of net gas pay.

"Downhole pressure testing and sampling has confirmed the presence of dry gas and moveable 30-33 degree API oil," the statement said, adding that the reservoir quality for both zones is excellent.

Aidan Heavey, chief Executive of Tullow, said the discovery indicates the potential for further significant discoveries from the Victoria Nile delta play.

Kasamene-1 was drilled 15 km to the north-west of the Ngege-1 discovery and is the second successful test of the Victoria Nile delta play fairway within the Lake Albert Rift Basin.

The company said that on completion of operations at Kasamene-1, the rig will move 10 km to the east and drill the Kigogole-1 prospect starting mid this month.

Heritage Oil, another company exploring for oil in the western part of the country, said the Kasamene-1 discovery, which is located in Block 2, lowers the exploration risk of prospects in Block 1.

The company said in a news release on Wednesday that the structural trends of Warthog, Giraffe and Buffalo oil wells in Block 1 can be traced to Kasamene-1, which is just 2.5 km away.

Exploration studies by RPS Energy in September 2007 showed that Buffalo and Giraffe prospects have meant gross un-risked prospective resources of 420 and 89 million barrels respectively.

Heritage said it is planning an active drilling campaign in Block 1 that is expected to commence next month on the Buffalo, Giraffe and Warthog prospects.

The Kasamene-1 discovery is one of the many in western part of the country since the first was announced in June 2006.Ministry of energy and mineral development statistics indicate that the country currently has 300 million barrels of oil.

Uganda is scheduled to start an early production scheme in 2009 to generate over 4,000 barrels per day and refine them into heavy fuel used for power generation and other fuel products.

The country is currently facing a power shortage which experts say is slowing down its economy growth. The discoveries are expected to offset the country's enormous fuel import bill of millions of U.S. dollars annually.