More oil than thought in Kenya

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, May 10 (UPI) -- A Canadian oil company with a focus on Africa said an independent survey of its holdings in Kenya led it to increase its reserve estimate by 24 percent.

Africa Oil Corp., which has its headquarters in Vancouver, said an independent review of its reserves in the South Lokichar basin in Kenya found an estimated gross of 766 million barrels of oil. That's a 24 percent increase from the previous estimate.

President and CEO Keith Hill said the results led him to believe the basins in the north of Kenya could hold as much as 1.6 billion barrels of oil.

"The level of these resources gives us confidence that we will exceed the threshold required for development and we continue to push forward for development sanction during 2017," he said in a statement.

In a deal with Africa Oil Corp., Danish company Maersk Oil last year agreed to cover upfront the costs of exploring frontier areas of northern Kenya and Ethiopia. The Canadian company has also teamed up with Tullow Oil in the discovery of more than 600 million barrels of oil in the region.

Last year, Tullow, which has headquarters in London, said it didn't find any hydrocarbons worth exploring further at a frontier, or wildcat, well in northern Kenya. In March, however, the company said it made its most significant find yet in the Kerio Valley basin in northern Kenya.