''Oil discovery in Karamoja region can help develop it''

 

Kyalimpa said this while reacting to studies that show there was potential oil and gas deposits in Karamoja that need further exploration.

 

"Revenues can be used to build infrastructure and improve social protection in the region. Oil revenues and royalties can help build household incomes through investing in agriculture, nomadic pastoralism, where the majority of the communities derive their livelihoods," Kyalimpa advised.

 

He indicated that oil industry will lead to industrialization of the region and the communities in the area would get employed.

 

Preliminary studies have shown that there is a high prospect for oil in Karamoja region. A sedimentary basin is a prerequisite for the presence of oil.  The Kabam -Moroto basin in the region could have commercial deposits of oil or there could be no commercially viable deposits.

 

Peter Lokeris, state minister for minerals said: "There is some trace of oil in the Kadam-Moroto basin". He noted that a discovery was made by the British colonialist but no further exploration work was done by them.

 

The minister, who hails from Karamoja region, pointed out that the basin was a large area with some parts being dry and other parts containing water and grass. People have settled within the basin and when exploration activities commence they would have to be resettled or compensated, according to the minister.

 

Explaining how oil and gas is formed, Prof. Professor Eric De Merville, member of the Total Professeurs Associés (TPA)explained that sediments accumulate and form a source rock which is buried underground and allows the organic matter it contains to progressively mature as it is buried deeper and deeper generating first kerogen (contains mainly paraffin hydrocarbons) and then oil and gas after millions of years.

 

"Sediments move down from the Earth's surface to the underground before generating hydrocarbon fluids. The accumulation and burial of huge amounts of rich organic sediments takes place over several millions sometimes hundreds of millions of years," De Merville explained.

 

"The transformation of the organic matter into oil and gas is made possible because of the high levels of pressure and temperature within the subsurface. Natural seeps are the easiest way to determine that a place has oil. Pockmarks (underwater craters caused by escaping gas) also provide basic evidence of hydrocarbon generation (be it shallow or deep in the Earth," De Merville said.

 

"Other than that, wild cat wells will have to be drilled and used to determine the presence of hydrocarbon deposits in an area. However, wild cats are drilled after long and difficult exploration studies. Their success rate though remains low," he added.