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MOMBASA, Kenya Aug 26 – President Uhuru Kenyatta was on Monday scheduled to flag-off the inaugural shipment of Kenyan crude oil from the port of Mombasa. Officials said the export of the Kenyan crude oil will start with a shipment of 200,000 barrels marking Kenya’s entry into the league of oil-exporting countries.

The crude oil from Turkana Oil fields, which is being mined by Tullow Oil, is being exported to Malaysia.

A Chinese company, Chemchina, has bought the first batch of the Kenyan crude oil at USD12 million, which is approximately Sh1.2 billion.

“We are now an oil exporter. Our first deal was concluded with 200,000 barrels at a price of 12 million US dollars,” President Kenyatta said last month.

Kenya’s journey to become an oil exporter began in 2012 when Tullow Oil discovered commercial oil reserves in the Lokichar basin in the northern county of Turkana.

Since last year, Tullow Oil has been running a pilot scheme of transporting some 2,000 barrels of oil per day by trucks to Mombasa from Turkana.

This is to test flow rates and other technical issues before the start of full production and exports via a pipeline to be built by 2022.

Tullow estimates that Kenya’s fields in Turkana hold up to 560 million barrels of oil and expects to produce up to 100,000 barrels per day from 2022.