We are used to talking about the oil majors like Shell being in the spotlight over African oil exploration.
But a smaller player is making the headlines, with a soaring share price and two African discoveries in a week: one in Uganda and another off Sierrra Leone.
It is the Irish independent company Tullow that has the [...]

As president Obama reads the reactions to his first fleeting visit to the Middle East, his first proposed African visit is also causing quite a stir.
In just over a month, Obama will undertake his first visit to the continent. The country he will visit is not the powerhouse of West Africa, Nigeria, but its smaller [...]

When Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni launched their campaign against the oil companies in the Niger Delta in the early nineties, one of their key demands was that they should receive a greater share of the oil wealth from the oil drilled from under their land.
Its seems a no-brainer really that the locals should benefit [...]

A good article in today’s New York Times about oil development in Sao Tome, the small principality off the West African Coast.
In contrast to much of African oil development – that has been plagued by corruption – Sao Tome’s oil development was meant to be different and benefit the local people. It was meant [...]

The World Bank has warned that Angola risked the “resource curse” if it did not manage oil revenues better to promote development.
“The oil curse is a possibility here - but it has the opportunity to change the curse into a blessing if it puts good policies in place and improves transparency,” World Bank economist, Francisco [...]