Mohammed Issa
16 November 2009
Nairobi — As an oil-starved East Africa intensifies its search for the product, Tanzania is expecting a drilling ship to dock next month to propel the country's off-shore exploration.
The Panama-registered West Polaris is owned by the oil firm Seadrill but hired by Ophir Energy-Tanzania under a sharing agreement.
The vessel will be the first of its kind to visit the country and will be deployed in the Mafia Oil Basin in the south.
Jeff Clarke, Ophir's general manager in Tanzania, told The EastAfrican that the state-of-the-art vessel is capable of drilling a 3,000-metre deep-water oil well.
"Ophir plans to bring into the country one of the world's largest and newest ultra-deep-water drilling vessels. The rig is a completely self-contained drilling facility," he said.
The Mafia basin has been found to contain reserves of oil and gas that however need such a vessel to access.
Built by Samsung Heavy Industries of South Korea in 2006, the West Polaris' recent assignment was in Brazil.
To avoid delays to its African oil activities in Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Tanzania, among others, Ophir entered into "rigs and drillship" sharing agreements with other oil companies to counter the shortage of such equipment.
The agreements have given it access to rigs and drillships like the West Polaris, which are owned and operated by competitors.
Similar vessels -- like the West Aquarius and the Deep Venture -- could also be deployed in the country's waters should the need arise, The EastAfrican has learnt.
The vessels were built in Finland in 1983 and upgraded in 2007 in South Africa.
Norwegian consultancy firm Fearnley Offshore AS had tipped Ophir to the rising demand for such vessels amid short supply and advised it to enter into "sharing deals" with competing companies to secure lease rights.
The cost to Ophir of leasing the West Polaris is yet to be made public, as is its duration of stay in Tanzania.
Tanzania has diverse energy potential, much of it untapped, and Ophir says exploration has so far inferred "the presence of a potential reservoir" in the country.
"The Group is optimistic that the petroleum system in the deepwater areas may be oil-prone but is also considering whether a gas-prone system may be commercially attractive as the structures mapped are substantial."
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