Oil production in prospect as election looms

Kenya will be able to announce the start of oil production in 2017 as President Uhuru Kenyatta seeks a second term in office in elections set for August. But while Kenyan politicians have picked on Tullow Oil’s planned early oil pilot scheme (EOPS) as an election issue, Tullow says the timing is independent of the political calendar. “Our drive to get that scheme ahead was really driven by a number of things and it wasn’t the Kenyan election,” chief operating officer Paul McDade, who will take over as chief executive in April, told African Energy. “We see it as very much independent of the election.”