Oil in Africa

By Berry Itom


There are newfound sightings of oil and gas in some regions of Africa. Different African governments are currently faced with the challenge of pursuing the advancement of national income or the maintenance and conservation of their foreign exchange. The historical trend of instability across African countries may increase due to new oil and gas findings.

There is a reserved amount of oil and gas in Tunisia compared to Algeria. It was affirmed by the Energy Information Administration that there is a recoverable oil reserve in the country that is predicted to be 425 million barrels. Moreover, Tunisia is also known to have numerous cubic feet of gas. Nonetheless, previous rallies about the how oil and gas will affect the economy, governance and security in Tunisia continue to haunt the security issue about this subject.

Kenya's oil and gas reserves are not yet clearly known, for the moment. But there are existing exploration activities being conducted in Kenya. On a lighter note, Tanzania is acknowledged as a forthcoming top gas producer by the United Nations. Presently, the oil and gas industry of Tanzania makes up 55% of its foreign exchange earnings. One of Africa's nations who recently tied with the continent's cluster of oil and gas producing countries is Uganda. Uganda only had five hydrocarbon deposits extensively investigated. There is not presence of hydrocarbon in Togo. Since Togo does not have sources for oil and gas, they are mostly involved with certain activities like petroleum marketing, importation, distribution and transportation. Due to the reason that Togo does not have oil and gas presence compared to other African countries, important oil companies still continue to operate in the area. Swaziland has no oil and gas reserves. Swaziland is reliant on South Africa for 40% of its oil and gas.

Sudan and South Sudan have am ample amount of oil reserves, but since the two territories split, most of the oil reserves went to South Sudan. New projects of exploration are being initiated by North Sudan to recuperate from the lost oil reserves after splitting with South Sudan. Matters regarding oil and gas in Sudan were a central issue in the creation of North and South Sudan that was given to the African Union to decide.

Oil and gas in Africa has a lot of underlying stories and countries involved. | The subject concerning oil and gas in Africa have are made up of many countries and sub-issues. The aforementioned oil and gas matters in Africa were merely an overview.




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