Tullow Oil has encountered more oil in Kenya, the company announces, following exploration drilling in the north of the country.

Tullow announced the find on Wednesday, stating that drilling at its onshore Twiga South-1 well – located in the Kenya Block 13T – had encountered oil, however to estimate the extent of reserves further drilling will be required.

Tullow owns a 50 percent stake in the Twiga South-1 well, which is co-owned by Africa Oil Corp. which also holds a 50 per cent stake in the well.

The companies will continue drilling over the coming weeks in order to achieve target depths whereafter sampling and further tests will enable them to establish the approximate size of oil reserves.  An announcement is expected to be made in mid-November.

Kenya has become the focal point of much oil-related attention after Tullow’s surprise drilling success which encountered oil near to the Twiga Southa 1 site – at the Ngamia 1 well on Block 10BB – in March of this year.

Drilling at sites in Kenya’s Turkana county, Tullow encountered oil, which it disclosed was similar in texture and quality to the crude discovered in the Lake Albert basin in Uganda.

With the company making the announcement at the time that: “Many leads and prospects similar to Ngamia have been identified and following this discovery the outlook for further success has been significantly improved,” the find prompted wide-spread further exploration of the area, and today’s announcement shows the exploration to be well-placed.

The company has been seen focusing on East Africa in the hope of discovering the next big oil find in Africa.

On the Ngamia find, and the prospect of further exploration, the company said in a statement: “This is an excellent start to our major exploration campaign in the East African rift basins of Kenya and Ethiopia. To make a good oil discovery in our first well is beyond our expectations and bodes well for the material programme ahead of us… We look forward to further success as seismic and drilling activities continue to gather pace.”

Tullow was also party to a joint venture that hit offshore natural gas reserves earlier this year, however in September the company announced that the gas reserves had been found to contain only 52 metres of net gas pay, and as such the project was abandoned.