Can Kenya finally deliver on Turkana’s oil promise?

LOKICHAR, Kenya — On a recent Sunday afternoon in Lokichar, a small town in Kenya’s northern Turkana region, the expansive grounds of the Black Gold Hotel are deserted, aside from a couple of housekeepers seeking shade in the leafy courtyard beside the conference center. Just beyond the hotel gates, a four-lane highway linking Lokichar to the nearby regional capital of Lodwar is similarly empty. A long-promised oil boom remains stubbornly on the horizon. In 2010, the Anglo-Irish firm Tullow Oil PLC discovered oil deposits estimated at more than 500 million barrels in the arid landscapes surrounding Lokichar. Hailed as a major breakthrough by then-president Mwai Kibaki, this was meant to usher in a new era of prosperity for Turkana and its people, whose history of systemic neglect dates back to the colonial era. A wave of internal migration and a frantic construction boom followed in the remote pastoralist trading town. But after more than a decade of setbacks and spiraling debt, Tullow effectively halted its operations in 2020, leaving behind a trail of stalled infrastructure and lingering uncertainty. A Nairobi-based petroleum trader, Gulf Energy Ltd., acquired Tullow’s entire Turkana stake in a $120 million transaction finalized in September 2025, with the Kenyan government retaining a 25% stake. The company has since pledged to invest approximately $6 billion in developing Turkana’s oil fields. At a parliamentary committee hearing in early February, the company’s chairperson, Francis Njogu, said the firm aims to begin commercial production by Dec. 1 this year, signaling a…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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