London-listed Tullow Oil is considering plans to source back-up power from onshore wind and geothermal assets in Kenya to support its challenging South Lokichar basin oil project in the East African country.
The Anglo-Irish operator — along with partners Total and Africa Oil — is revisiting the original South Lokichar exploitation scheme to reduce costs and aims to submit a fresh development plan to Kenya’s government by the end of next year.
Explaining Tullow’s current thinking around the incorporation of renewable power into the multi-field project and limiting greenhouse gas emissions, a company spokesman said a significant amount of power will be needed to meet the heating demands of South Lokichar’s waxy crude and also processing requirements.
Tullow ceases Kenya early oil output operations as it eyes capital markets
Documentation obtained by Upstream states that the original plan called for 48 megawatts of installed power. Reducing emissions ‘integral to design’
The Tullow spokesman said these needs could be met by associated gas that will be produced at Lokichar along with the oil and also by plugging into Kenya’s electrical grid.
“Reducing (greenhouse gas) emissions is integral to the design and, for instance, using the produced gas to generate power will reduce emissions,” he said.
“This, along with using Kenya’s grid power as a back-up supply — which includes wind and geothermal — provides the best combination of managing resources and deploying available power.
“The aim is to procure power from the Kenya grid that has a combination of power sources — including geothermal and wind,” said the spokesman.
“This is quite symbiotic because the initial phase of production will be driven by produced gas, which is used to convert to power. Any back-up/standby (needs) are provided from the grid.”
As South Lokichar’s produced gas depletes through the lifecycle of the production phase, power will be drawn from the grid, he added.However, the spokesman stressed that Tullow itself has no plans to develop wind and geothermal projects. Re-evaluating geological models Aside from evaluating power sources, the operator project review process is re-evaluating geological models by fully incorporating the recent early oil production data. Also being assessed is the possibility of exploiting additional discoveries in South Lokichar’s earlier phases — a decision that “could provide higher initial production rates and possibly increase resource recovery", he said.Once project optimisation studies have been completed, said the spokesman, “a more comprehensive view on the development scenario will be provided".In parallel to […]