Woodside has said Kenya is regarded as the most prospective part of the east Africa, with several large geological structures hosting multiple targets similar to those found on Australia’s North West Shelf.

The company has been exploring in Kenya since 2003, acquiring several offshore areas and high-grading its portfolio. It has a 50% operating interest in each of Blocks L5 and L7.

Exploration has included 5000km of two-dimensional seismic, with a further 1500km of seismic and two exploration wells between 2005 and 2008.

“Kenya is pretty much virgin territory,” Thompson said at the club’s monthly dinner meeting at the Parmelia Hilton in Perth.

“It’s a little like Mauritania, only I think more challenging,” he said.

Woodside’s Kenyan prospects were in deep water areas of up to 3000m with strong currents.

“This is a real challenge,” he said. “We’ll learn a lot more as we go forward.”

Woodside has certainly been learning on the job in Mauritania.

The company brought Chinguetti into production less than five years after discovery and learned a lot about operating in a difficult deepwater environment. But production volumes have been disappointing with the field going into rapid decline due to the area’s convoluted and compartmentalised geology.

Like Chinguetti, the nearby Tiof discovery is a submerged ancient deltaic system, and if anything, it is more complex than Chinguetti.

Woodside has always been less bullish about Tiof than joint venture partner Hardman Resources, and Thompson told the Petroleum Club that rising costs and problems at Chinguetti had prompted Woodside to review the economics of developing Tiof.

“The field is not as attractive as it used to be,” he said.