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Africa Oil Boom Fades as $50 Crude Shuts Door on High-Cost Deals

  • Investment decisions made on less than 10% of discoveries
  • Governments still working on basis of $100 oil: WoodMac
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Oil and Gas Outlook: What's Ahead in 2016?

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“On the brink of a boom,” was the banner on PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP’s review of Africa’s oil industry 16 months ago. Now, oil below $50 has made more than two out of three investment projects on the continent non-viable. 

“Capital markets are effectively closed to the oil and gas industry” in Africa, Tony Hayward, former head of BP Plc and now chairman of Genel Energy Plc, said at a conference in Cape Town last month. “A decade of exploration, with billions of dollars invested and only limited commercial success.”