Spudded on Saturday, the well is being drilled from Songo-Songo Island offshore Tanzania using the Caroil-6 land rig, which also drilled the earlier unsuccessful Kiliwani-1 well.

Kiliwani North-1 will test a possible new oil play in the Nyuni Block and also investigate the lower cretaceous sand stones, which are the reservoirs at the Songo-Songo producing gas field.

Drilling is expected to take 35 days to reach a total depth of 2012 metres.

Operator of the two-well program is Ndovu Resources, with a 39% stake, while Key holds a 20% stake and Bounty has 6%.