Kenya Delays Oil Exports by Three Months

Kenya Delays Oil Exports by Three Months

The Kenyan Energy Ministry announced that the country will only begin early oil exports after legislation to govern the industry is passed by lawmakers chosen in August elections, Bloomberg stated.

First oil from Kenya will arrive in international markets three months later than projected, Oil Price reported.

Minister of Energy, Charles Keter, said that the government chose to postpone the shipment as it was negotiating better revenue-sharing agreements with local communities. The news came after a series of attacks on workers who were preparing roads that will be used to truck the oil to coastal areas.

Keter said, “We do not want to start the export without having a clear picture of revenue sharing, we have to wait for the Senate to be formed, hopefully we will start the export after the election and when we have a Senate to approve the bill.”

In 2016, Kenyan President, Uhuru Kenyatta, refused to sign the bill, which hands 10% of petroleum earnings to the local community and 20% to local authorities. Instead, he asked lawmakers to stick with the government’s original plan of giving 5% to the residents of the impoverished and remote region and 75% to the central Treasury.

Tullow Oil Plc, which discovered 750m barrels of Kenyan oil in 2012, was expected to start trucking out the crude in June 2017 as Kenya arranges for the construction of a pipeline. Keter said a deal on the pipeline will be concluded in July.

Accordingly, an 855 km pipeline will go online by the year 2020, bringing crude to the Indian Ocean for export. Hence, production is due to reach 100,000b/d.

Tullow Kenya’s Managing Director, Martin Mbogo, told reporters, “There may be a deferral, but the vision still remains.”

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