East Africa's oil explorers under pressure, but ploughing on

Relatively low operational costs should help East Africa's existing onshore oil exploration activities weather the storm caused by low oil prices

But governments may need to make the terms of future licensing rounds more attractive - and finally get a regional oil pipeline project off the ground - if they are to entice drillers to take up fresh acreage.  That East Africa still remains an attractive place for oil explorers has been underlined by the decision of struggling Tullow Oil to focus its exploration on the region. On 11 February, Tullow reported a $2 billion pretax loss and withheld its final dividend payment for the year as revenues from its global operations slumped. However, the company said it would now concentrate on finding new reserves in Kenya, as well as neighbouring Uganda, where it already is involved in an explorati