Over the past 15 years, Africa has featured prominently on the global exploration map of international oil majors looking to open up new frontiers and book new reserves. Soft fiscal terms in oil rich countries and high oil prices more recently have driven exploration programmes of some of the bigger companies into the deepwater areas of the Gulf of Guinea, which has a prolific oil bearing geology.

With many of the international oil companies locked out of the most productive basins in the Middle East, or up against hostile government policies in producers such as Russia and Venezuela, Africa has come as something of a reprieve.