Africa is not always an easy place to do business, but that has not stopped a surge of small and mid-sized oil companies flooding into the continent. With many of the oil majors in the past few years focused on the multibillion dollar deepwater investments in the Gulf of Guinea, and oil prices so high, the past few years have seen plenty of incentives for smaller companies to try to make it big in Africa.

Such companies have generally secured licences that have been ignored or relinquished by the majors, while others have moved in as minority partners in financing arrangements in oil and gas developments.