Is East Africa The World's Next Oil Boom

An oil-drilling platform under construction at Walvis Bay, Namibia.
Steve Allen / Getty

Is East Africa The Next Frontier For Oil? -- Time Magazine

According to local lore, Portuguese travelers as far back as the late 19th century suspected that oil might lie beneath parts of East Africa after noticing a thick, greasy sediment wash up on the shores of Mozambique. More interested in finding cheap labor, though, the explorers had little use for oil.

A century later, it turns out that the Portuguese were right. Seismic tests over the past 50 years have shown that countries up the coast of East Africa have natural gas in abundance. Early data compiled by industry consultants also suggest the presence of massive offshore oil deposits. Those finds have spurred oil explorers to start dropping more wells in East Africa, a region they say is an oil and gas bonanza just waiting to be tapped, one of the last great frontiers in the hunt for hydrocarbons.

Read more ....

My Comment: Long time readers of this blog know my opinion on this matter .... there has always been plenty of oil in the world, but the problem has never been oil reserves and supply .... the problem has always been politics, government corruption, coupled with either government nationalization and/or outright government control and management of oil supplies.

The reason why I say this is simple .... if there is one thing that I know about governments when it comes to managing a business or commodity .... they will always fail. For East Africa .... I can easily predict what will happen if oil companies start to explore for oil reserves. After a brief period of time the politicians and special interests will take over, and the same cycle of corruption, government intervention, and mismanagement will come into play. As for the people on the ground .... they will get nothing but suffering and a belief that they are being exploited by their own leaders .... which they are.