Recently launched OilnewsKenya.com wants to be the go-to site for everything oil and gas in Kenya and the entire region for explorers, investors and stakeholders in the oil and gas industry.

The site has information on the new industry, facts and statistics and the main players in the regions oil industry

Speaking to TechMoran, Kamau Mbote, the founder said, “Oil is a very capital intensive industry and companies want to have proper information before they can embark on any investment. Lack of proper information could lead in ill advised decisions and this mistakes run into their billions. The website will therefore help companies make smarter decisions.”

“When we started the website it was more of the desire to specialize in a new area of news that did not have a single journalist focusing on. Two weeks into the writing there was a discovery by Tullow Oil that saw the audience increase ten-fold as interested Kenyans and players in this field sought a credible news source,” says Mbote.

Within weeks of launch, the platform has already beenpartner with Eastern Africa Oil, Gas, LNG and energy conferences recently held in Nairobi.

Kenya has been exploring for oil and gas since the early 1950’s with BP and Shell drilled their first well in Lamu in 1960 showing several indications of oil staining and untested zones with gas shows. It would however take 50 years before the first commercial quantities of oil would be discovered by British explorer Tullow Oil in Turkana at Ngamia 1 well. Since the discovery which have been followed by numerous others there has been a rush to explore the various blocks in the country and thus an increased interest in the oil and gas industry in Kenya. Kenya has an estimated oil resource of 600mmboe with the potential in the country expected to be much higher. Other neighbouring countries namely Uganda has a discovered oil reserves estimated to be 3.5 barrels while Tanzania and Mozambique have also discovered natural gas in large quantities.

Mbote says putting the developments of the industry in the limelight is important as ” investors in the equity markets a discovery or a dry whole would result to a change in the share price almost instantly. Such people want to be the first to get such news so that they can make smart moves.”

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