By Michel Nkurunziza
Works to explore the prospects of oil in Lake Kivu could resume soon after the project’s Rwf1.038 billion budget received the nod from parliamentarians.
The budget has now been availed to support Rwanda Mines, Petroleum & Gas Board (RMB) to support its efforts to continue exploration activities of gas and oil, according to Omar Munyaneza, the Chairperson of the Committee on National Budget and Patrimony in Chamber of Deputies.
Vital Karangwa, in charge of communication at RMB, told The New Times that exploration activities were supposed to start in June this year.
However, the activities were disrupted by factors including Covid-19 and budget constraints.
Karangwa said exploration known as 2D seismic survey would resume soon.
In May this year, RMB organised a high-level meeting on the upcoming survey in Lake Kivu in Rubavu District.
“The 2D seismic survey is an exploration activity aimed at imaging sedimentary layers of the subsurface area of interest,” said Ivan Twahirwa in charge of exploration, energy and industrial processes at petroleum board.
He said that the exercise will help to “know more about the Kivu basin oil and gas potential”.
He noted that collaboration and facilitation from stakeholders is crucial to avoid activity interference during maritime operations of seism data acquisition.
“After data acquisition, raw data shall be processed and interpreted for geological understanding of the petroleum system to pinpoint drilling targets,” he said.
Rwandans could start using locally produced cooking gas from Lake Kivu by the end of 2022 thanks to a project that seeks to process methane into compressed natural gas (CNG).
In February 2019, Rwanda inked a $400 million deal with Gasmeth Energy to extract and process methane into CNG for cooking, industrial use and vehicles.
Shema Power Lake Kivu (SPLK) is set to produce 15 megawatts of electricity by June this year, in its first phase of methane gas extraction from Lake Kivu.
Overall, the plant seeks to add 56 megawatts to the national grid after investing $400 million in methane gas extraction.
The project, which started in October 2019, is set to be finalised by December 2022.
