FT: Africa oil industry refocuses priorities as price falls and setbacks bedevil groups

For executives at the African oil industry’s annual get together last week, the traditional party atmosphere proved extremely shortlived. No sooner had they checked into their Cape Town hotels than they began to receive bad news.

In rapid succession, the chairman of Tanzania’s state-owned oil company was detained in police custody over a contracts row, Total of France suffered a drillship breakdown that will delay offshore exploration in South Africa by a year; ConocoPhillips took a $140m charge on a dry well in Angola, and Tuareg rebels stormed the El Sharara oilfield in Libya, co-owned by Repsol of Spain.

All of this as oil prices fell to a four-year low. If some of those attending Africa Oil Week felt the party was over, the equity market offered little reason for cheer: explorers’ share prices, having once been buoyed by investor demand for exposure to the continent, fell further – to almost half their level back in January.
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