pump some oil baby

East Africa attracts hunters for oil and gas

Home (IHT) - PARIS: Oil companies, both western and Asian, are hunting in earnest for oil and gas in East Africa, a still largely under-explored region, as energy nationalism in Russia, Venezuela and the Middle East closes off opportunities in more proven areas.

"East Africa, for a frontier area, is experiencing one of the highest levels of investment in the world right now - but we're only seeing the beginning," said Chris Matchette-Downes, vice president of business development at Black Marlin Energy, an oil service company based in Dubai and specializing in the region. About $500 million is being spent on research but so far only about 479 wells have been drilled from Eritrea to Cape Town including Madagascar, compared with as many as 30,000 in northern and western Africa, he said.

Link