Exploration in the basin began with the Loperot-1 well drilled by Royal Dutch Shell in 1992. This found some oil in thin sands, but proved the presence of a good quality and mature source rock and good quality reservoir sands. This phase of exploration ended as the company assessed the results as non-commercial. In 2008 Africa Oil Corp acquired a PSA for license 10BB over the basin. In 2010 they farmed out part of their interest to Tullow, who became the operator. In 2012 drilling began with Ngamia-1, which was a major discovery. Subsequently, another eight discoveries have been made, all, like Ngamia, close to the basin bounding fault. There are now sufficient discovered resources for a commercial development. The proposed export route for the oil is the Kenya Crude Oil Pipeline.
