Dominion Petroleum (LON:DPL) announced today that the Ugandan government has granted them a permit for the first ever well in the Lake Edward basin. The board expect drilling to commence in June this year.
The oil and gas company, with prospects primarily in East Africa, confirmed today that the permit is for the Ngaji-1 well on exploration area block 4B and will be their first exploration well in Uganda. The Ngaji-1 well is a tilted fault block located in an area similar to the Buffalo-Giraffe discovery in Exploration Area 1, reported to hold 400million barrels of oil. In an announcement earlier this year, Dominion said they expect the results from the drill of Ngaji-1 to offer insight into the the entire basin's hydrocarbon potential, as well as the well itself. Providing it is successful, the company plan to progress rapidly, moving swiftly onto a exploration and appraisal activities at the EA4B well, and potentially the neighbouring block 5 in Congo. At Block 7, off shore Tanzania, the seismic programme has been scheduled to begin at the end of June, covering approximately 1,000 square kilometres. Today, Dominion revealed they will be implementing a comprehensive programme to address all social and environmental matters associated with the drilling of the well. Dominion's CEO, Andrew Cochran, commented:
"We will be working very closely with them to ensure that any impact on the local environment and community is minimised. We take our social and environmental responsibilities in Uganda extremely seriously and have already made considerable efforts to contribute to the local community, whilst planning even more still. We view the issue of this permit by the Government as a validation of our efforts to date. With preparations well under way, we are now moving rapidly towards initial drilling in June and possibly more seismic to follow later in the year."
