Kenya to host 6th East Africa oil meet in March

More than 500 oil and gas executives will gather in Nairobi for the sixth East Africa Oil and Gas Summit and Exhibition, with the meet coming at a time when Kenya is looking to commercialise its oil reserves.

Kenya is looking to build a crude pipeline to Lamu from the Turkana oil fields, while in the wider region Uganda is also on the oil export path with a planned pipeline through Tanzania. “The scope, scale and spread of current and future oil and gas infrastructure development projects in East Africa is positioning the region as a hotbed of oil and gas exploration, investment and development,” said Charles Kahuthu, the regional coordinator and CEO of the East African Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture. “EAOGS will have participants from hosts Kenya, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zanzibar, all coming together to showcase the commercial opportunities throughout the region.”

For the regional economies, the key issue has been the financing of the capital intensive oil production process.

Kenya is currently undertaking an early oil export pilot scheme, sounding out the market ahead of full commercial production in the next decade.