KAMPALA (Reuters) - Test results from two recent oil discoveries in Africa's Great Rift Valley should be known within two and a half months, one of the companies exploring in western Uganda said on Thursday.
Simon Potter, chief executive officer of Australia's Hardman Resources, said flow testing equipment was being shipped from Cape Town to its Waraga-1 well, where it reported finding oil last month.
"That facility should be in place within four to six weeks, and it normally takes about 20 to 30 days to get solid results," he told Reuters in a telephone interview from Perth.
Hardman operates Waraga-1, in which Britain's Tullow Oil is a 50 percent partner.
The pair said in February they had found oil at Mputa-1 well 19 km southwest of Waraga-1, boosting shares, but that in both cases it was too early to comment on their potential.
Potter said a third well would be drilled at Mputa-C, and if suitable, it would then be flow tested after Waraga-1.
"Mputa-C is better geologically. The beds of interest to us are thicker," he said. "We want to know if we are sitting on a big structure, and it seeks to fill in some gaps."
He said Hardman had finished building 30 km of road to transport the drilling and testing rigs from Waraga-1 to the new site, which was crucial because seasonal rains would fast make other routes impassable.
Potter said multiple samples from Waraga-1 showed it held light oil, meaning it would be easier to extract and need minimal refining: "I would say the best sample was 40 degrees (API gravity) and the worst was 30 degrees," he said.
Flow testing -- where the metal cases sealing the wells are perforated -- would provide much more valuable data, he said.
"It will still be just three data points in quite a large area," he said. "We could be sitting on three 30 million barrel bumps, or maybe it could be bigger."
Experts say volume would be commercially viable in established oil fields, but much more difficult in remote western Uganda, some 1,200 km (750 miles) from the main Kenyan port of Mombasa -- about a week by pot-holed roads.
"You would have to truck the crude oil to wherever it has to go," Potter said. "After the flow testing we will want to pause and to consider what a commercial development looks like, and what information we need to confirm it is there."
He said there were more opportunities in the northeast of Hardman exploration block and under the part of Lake Albert it covers, although any underwater drilling would cost more.
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