Written by Eduard Gismatullin | From Bloomberg

Tullow Oil Plc (TLW) made two new discoveries in Kenya, boosting prospects for turning East Africa’s largest economy into an oil exporter.

The U.K. oil explorer doubled its Kenyan resource estimates to more than 600 million barrels after the Amosing and Ewoi wells found crude, Tullow said today in a statement. The company, which plans more than 20 wells in northern Kenya over the next two years, said it had started preliminary design work on a pipeline to an export terminal.

“Kenya is one of our core and key areas going forward,” Tullow Chief Executive Officer Aidan Heavey said in a phone interview. “We are also starting discussions with the government now on the development plans.”

Kenya may become East Africa’s first oil exporter as soon as 2016 as Tullow and its partner Africa Oil Corp. (AOI) continue to explore the Lokichar Basin in the north of country. Tullow, which works with France’s Total SA and China’s Cnooc Ltd. to develop fields in neighboring Uganda, has plans to combine oil exports from the two countries through one pipeline network.

Read more at Bloomberg