Rwanda

Location:Eastern Shores of Lake Kivu
Mineral:Oil and Gas
Property Size:1,631 sq km
Stage of Development:Exploration
Current Work Program:Airborne Gravity and Aeromagnetic Survey
Ownership: PSC Vanoil

Overview


Dal Brynelsen President and CEO signing production sharing agreement in Rwanda.
 
Vanoil holds exclusive exploration rights to the 1,631 sq km oil and gas concession in the northwestern part of Rwanda better known as the East Kivu Graben. The Kivu Graben area is part of the great East African Rift System and is approximately 90 kilometers wide and 200 kilometers long. The Graben straddles both Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and is the Southern extension of the Albertine Graben in Uganda where major oil discoveries have been made by Tullow Oil and Heritage Oil. Fault/linear interpretation of landsat imagery in earlier studies indicated a strong correlation of identified slicks with faults. This is a positive feature as oil migrates along fault lines. Another positive feature of the area is the correlation of the only two seismic sections available with some of the unassigned shows that indicate most of the "seep" features appear to be close to where the basin section overlaps onto the mainland or the shores of Idjwe Island.

Past Work

With the discovery of oil in southwestern Uganda by Heritage Oil and Tullow Oil, a technical review was undertaken to determine whether this area in Rwanda was an extension of that discovery. Results of the report stated that the existence of long chain hydrocarbons in the Lake Kivu waters has all along indicated the possible presence of active oil generation and accumulation in East Kivu Graben. The results of the Lake Kivu Study indicated 57 slicks in the area, which were categorized as 2 pollution, 53 unassigned and 2 priority unassigned slicks.

In order to further understand the significance of the technical review's findings Vanoil recently completed an aerial survey of the area for the measurement of the earth's gravity and magnetic fields over Lake Kivu and South West of Rwanda. A total of 2,088 line were flown against 3,100 km planned, linearly achieving 70% coverage of the East Kivu Graben. The apparent lack of completion of the planned survey is primarily due to political unrest in the Democratic Republic of Congo region, despite the best efforts from the Rwandan side and Vanoil.

Despite this difficulty, the contractor, South African based New Resolution Geophysics ("NRG"), was able to complete 100% of the southern survey covering Block 2 and 100% of Block 4 over Lake Kivu. Additionally NRG was able to achieve important coverage of the east-west flight lines over Block 1, and the southern and northern regions of the East Kivu Graben. The flight line coverage in Block 1 traverses across the dip geometry of the East Kivu Graben in the Northern area and Southern areas that mitigates border areas not covered

Current and Future Work Programs

Vanoil's 2010 exploration Program has commenced with an environmental impact assessment for the planned 2D marine seismic survey in the East Kivu Graben. This area is located cover Lake Kivu and it surrounds and is believed to be the south-western extension of Uganda's Albertine Graben which contains the four lakes (Lake Albert, Lake George, Lake Edward and Lake Kivu). They are separated by accommodations zones Ruwenzori and Virunga mountains.

The northernmost part of the Albertine Graben in Uganda's is the Lake Albert area which has an indicated oil reservoir of approximately 1 billion barrels. This major oil discovery was found by Heritage Oil and Tullow Oil. The common origin (shared tectonic and sedimentary history) of Lake Kivu with Lake Edward, Lake George and Lake Albert presupposes a similar sedimentary in-fill and therefore makes Lake Kivu an ideal basin to explore. Its prospectivity is further enhanced by presence of Long chain hydrocarbons in the lake bottom sediments indicative of the existence of an active petroleum system.

Maps

Map of Lake Kivu location of Vanoil concession

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The Basins of Kivu Graben

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May 15, 2013
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