Surestream Petroleum, a UK firm that has been awarded a licence to explore for hydro- carbons in the Lake Malawi basin, says existing data on the basin’s geology shows similar characteristics to some areas in Africa where oil has been discovered.

“Surestream Petroleum high-graded the Lake Malawi acreage as part of a review of the entire East African rift system, following a number of oil discoveries in the Lake Albert rift of Uganda.

“Basins that subside between bounding faults such as those that form the steep banks of Lake Malawi have historically been important oil producers in Africa, and Surestream’s previous activities in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi have all been concentrated in this setting,” says Surestream Petroleum country manager Keith Robinson.

He explains that while there has been no previous oil exploration in Malawi, “analogous activities” to those planned for its exploration work have been conducted by academic institutions and mining operators.

The activities include the Project Probe seismic programme conducted by Duke University in 1987 and the drilling of boreholes up to 392 m into the lake bed by Syracuse University as part of a scientific research that was conducted in 2005.

“The previous [work] indi- cates that large fault blocks are present in the basin, with the potential to form hydrocarbon ‘traps’, as these features typically do in rift basins.

“Potential for sandstone and limestone reservoirs is indicated by detailed onshore work in northern Malawi conducted by the Geological Survey of Malawi and various academics, while the boreholes in the lake indicate the presence of both ‘source rocks’ rich in organic material and capable of generating oil and ‘seals’ capable of retaining oil in the subsurface,” says Robinson.

He reports that much of Surestream’s early work will be aimed at determining whether and where the organic rich shales under the lake have been subjected to high enough temperatures to generate oil, though there are some favourable indications of natural oil slicks in the lake, seen from satellite analysis.

Surestream was among six companies that bid for licences for oil exploration in the Lake Malawi basin.