East Africa doesn't rank very high on a list of the world's hot E&P spots, but higher interest by major oil companies and recent discoveries by independents make the area look a lot more attractive. Speaking at an IHS Inc. regional energy conference in Houston, Melanie McQuinn, IHS analyst, took audience members on a short tour of the action.

South Africa has one new block closing in September. To the north in Mozambique, several fields are producing and some blocks still are available through negotiation with the government.

The activity is stronger in the Mozambique-Tanzania Rivuma Basin. Hydro and Petronas are acquiring geophysical data and Anadarko Petroleum on Artumas has spotted 100 exploration leads. To date, only two wells have been drilled on the Mozambique side of the basin.

Tanzania has aggressively marketed its oil and gas opportunities and independents cautiously stepped in to make their own evaluations. Maurel & Prom chalked up a success with its Mkuranga-1 gas discovery. That well tested at rates to 20 million cubic feet of gas a day and contains an estimated 30 million barrels of oil equivalent. That discovery will give Tanzania production from Mnazi Bay to the south, Songo-Songo Island and Mkuranga.

Just as important, a lot of the nation's offshore territory is under lease to oil and gas companies, McQuinn said. Some of those offshore blocks hold an unrisked potential as high as 426 million barrels of oil.

To the north, onshore Kenya are CNOOC, Origin, Aminex, Woodside and Gippsland Offshore Petroleum Ltd. with partner Pancontinental Oil & Gas NL. Gippsland and Pancontinental have conducted airborne surveys of their L-6 onshore and offshore block and found leads with a potential of 1.1 billion barrels of liquids or 5 trillion cubic feet of gas.

To date, Kenya has produced a lot of shows, but no discoveries, McQuinn said.

Farther north, Uganda registered four discoveries last year. Tullow Oil Plc brought in three of the discoveries: the Mputa, Nzizi and Waraga prospects on Block 2 in the Albertine Basin of eastern Uganda. The Mputa-1 tested for 1,120 barrels per day and the Waraga-1 tested at 1,200 per day. To the south on Block 3a in which Tullow is a 50% partner, Heritage Oil Corp. drilled the Kingfisher-1 discovery, which tested at a maximum rate of 13,893 barrels per day from four intervals.

That well has an estimated 2.1 billion barrels of oil in place, McQuinn said, and more than 1 billion barrels of potential production.

Somalia carries significant political risk, but Puntland to the north has approved some acreage for exploration by Australia's Range Resources Ltd. ConocoPhillips and others continue to hold some acreage in Somalia but are not active now.

Madagascar, on the other hand, is extremely active. Onshore, Madagascar Oil is working toward production on its huge Tsimimoro heavy-oil field and has more potential in the nearby Bemalongo tar field, but production will be expensive. ExxonMobil has licensed two large blocks off the nation's northwestern coast and Tullow also holds a license.

In an earlier IHS international conference in Tokyo, Andrew Hayman with IHS offered a roundup of potential returns from investments in east African nations. The most profitable play is oil offshore Kenya; the least profitable, oil onshore Uganda.

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