The time for getting your qualifications in engineering for oil and gas facilities has never been better. Kenya is ready to construct a 538-mile crude oil pipeline that will provide oil for a new port being built on the Indian Ocean coastline. This was confirmed by a government official on Thursday.
Pipeline engineers are now in a unique position because they can now apply to be considered to design the front-end engineering design of the pipeline.
Ministry of Energy and Petroleum Principal Secretary Andrew Kamau, speaking to Bloomberg said: “Once we have the pipeline design, the engineering, procurement and construction contract would be awarded in first quarter 2018. It would take us that long as we need environmental impact assessment study conducted to international standards for the project to be able to attract international funding.”
The east of Africa is seeing unprecedented successes in oil and gas. This week, a huge helium reserve was discovered in ancient rocks in Tanzania. Kenya is in the eight spot for the list of African countries with the biggest economy. They could jump up a few spots due to this refinery being its first refinery for the country. It will be delivering its first oil in June 2017. Africa Oil has said the South Lokichar basin will produce approximately 1.63 billion barrels of oil. The pipeline is estimated to cost $2.1 billion to build, which is a modest number based on other countries in Africa that have built bigger pipelines. Kenya seems to be playing catch up.