A Truly Magical Place
The Ngorongoro Conservation Area in Northern Tanzania is a World Heritage site renowned for its beauty and unique wildlife and one of the few places where active continental break-up and…
Africa
New Digital Africa Maps
New digital maps, based on ones originally produced by Africa specialist Ed Purdy, should shed new light on the exploration of the continent. Ed Purdy was an explorationist, academician and…
From Palm Oil to Petroleum
Lagos: the Liverpool of West Africa Lagos is famous for its teeming crowds and chaotic traffic jams, full to the brim with noise, pollution and crime. As the commercial centre…
The Cape Peninsula
Spectacular, extraordinary, awe-inspiring: Table Mountain and the Cape Peninsula in South Africa are more than just a list of superlatives, with much of interest to offer the visiting geologist. It…
An Underexplored Salt Province
A thirty year independence struggle with Ethiopia means that the natural resources of Eritrea remain largely untapped, but there is ample evidence that this now peaceful country is highly prospective…
Pre-salt basins identified in Gabon deepwater area
The section around the Tupi discovery offshore Brazil (far left) compares with the section (near left) from another line in South Gabon. Note that the Tupi example is a Reverse…
Hunting the Pre-Salt
There is now growing industry excitement in anticipation of the forthcoming Gabonese Licensing Round. The Round is increasingly being hailed as one of the best opportunities in many years to…
Half a Century of Oil in Libya
2008 marked the 50th anniversary of the very first commercial oil discovery in the Sirt Basin, Libya, in 1958. In the years since then, 22 giant and more than 25…
Mali: A Country on the Cusp?
Mali is the largest country in West Africa and yet is one of the least known to the hydrocarbon industry, with a total of only five exploration wells. It is…
The Dawning of Two Continents
Rifting caused the breakup of Western Gondwana into two separate continents and is responsible for the key elements of a mega petroleum system that is now being fully exploited. There…
Oil in Nigeria – Curse or Blessing?
As Nigeria is overtaken by Angola as Africa’s largest oil producer, is it true that the discovery of oil 50 years ago has been more a curse than a blessing?…
Seeking Operatorship in Angola
StatoilHydro has grown into a major player in Angola. With more than 200,000 barrels of oil produced every single day, and having assisted Sonangol to become an operator, the time…