What about Vanoil?Ok we are down to 5 cents and falling. Like I said, ouch, but what about Vanoil?
The bottom has also dropped out of V.VEN, and who knows how competent the management is, or even if they are just in it to line their pockets, but still............
A Soviet Submarine Discovered this 'Natural Pipeline' in the 1980s...
Dear Readers,
Today, this one-time formidable weapon sits rusting in its port outside of Odessa, Ukraine:
But thirty years ago, this Victor class attack submarine carried out one of the Soviet Navy's most unique missions.
Operating in the Gulf of Aden off the southern Yemeni coast, Captain Vasiley Sergeiyevich Simonov's orders were to go as deep as his hull would allow...
And map out the cracks, creases, and depressions in the ocean floor below using a special keel-mounted sonar array.
The goal was to get the most detailed 3-dimensional charts possible of the underwater terrain, which the Soviets could then use to hide their ballistic missile submarines for quick access to Middle Eastern and European targets.
The crack which formed the Gulf of Aden had long been known to geologists as the Davies Fracture Zone.
But they didn't fully understand what was hidden inside it until this advanced military technology appeared in the region.
In the end, the Russians never used their hyper-accurate renderings to fire any nukes at NATO.
And the hi-def images were lost in the chaos during the breakup of the Soviet Union...
When they resurfaced in the late 1990s, however, they were put to use in a way nobody could have anticipated.
This time, it wasn't the Soviet military elite looking at the charts; but a small oil exploration company looking to make the region's next big strike.
You see, for decades, geologists have theorized that about 18 million years ago the northern coast of Somalia and the southern coast of Yemen were joined.
But it wasn't until the Soviet navy's renderings of the ocean floor were carefully examined that the true strategic, political, and economic significance of this became clear.
Let me explain...
Beginning off the Yemeni coast and extending upwards into Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and Iran, lay the world's biggest and richest system of crude oil reserves:
Within it, the legendary Marib-Shabwa and Sayun-Masila Basins — including the biggest oil field of them all, the Saudis' massive Ghawar.
These petroleum resources have been dictating global politics and creating some of the largest personal fortunes the world has ever seen since the 1950s — including the richest family in history, the House of Saud, worth an estimated $1 trillion.
That's the first half of the story.
What Captain Simonov mapped during his passage through the Gulf of Aden was an ancient geological artifact, a clue for modern geologists...
It was the contact point between one half of the world's biggest petroleum deposits: the Middle Eastern formations I just mentioned...
And the other half, starting just south of the fracture zone.
The famed Middle Eastern oil deposits, it turns out, didn't stop at the Gulf of Aden...
But they actually extended down into Africa, starting in Somalia and winding their way south and east through Kenya and into Africa's biggest current oil-producing nations:
Angola, the Republic of Congo, and Nigeria.
And here's the part which really gets my oil industry buddies excited...
All this oil — which has been confirmed through drill testing, ground-penetrating radar, and intense geological analysis — is just sitting there, unused.
Untapped Billions: East Africa
Of all the places in the world where major deposits of oil have been confirmed, one stands out as the least touched of them all...
In the last 30 years, Africa has seen steady increases in oil production in all of its regions...
With four of its nations — Algeria, Angola, Libya, and Nigeria — joining OPEC as members of the world's richest oil cartel.
And yet, there remains one major oversight. And it doesn't take a financial specialist to see it...
With almost 60% of the continent now supplying 12% of global oil production, the Eastern region has — up to this point — remained virtually untouched.
Ironically, it's this region that also holds, by far, the richest concentrations of oil on the entire continent.
As I started to tell you about before...
The oil formation occupying most of the currently under-developed East African region — a giant system of deposits known as the Darin, Nugaal, and Anza Basins — is actually an ancient extension of the Marib-Shabwa and Sayun-Masila Basins of the Middle East...
The very same system of formations which was tapped in the 1950s and 1960s — and spawned the Arab oil empires of today.
Today, the Davies Fracture Zone remains as evidence that the multi-trillion dollar Middle Eastern oil formation actually has a southern half.
Now, I don't think I need to tell you about the countless billions of barrels produced by tapping the northern part of this resource...
Or what this unimaginable wealth has meant for the Middle East and for world politics in the second half of the 20th century...
That's all in the past.
Here's the future...
The East-African portion of this mega-system:
And it's this part — the part that nobody's heard about yet — that's so critical...
With the U.S. Geological Survey estimating 71.1 billion barrels locked in East Africa (the most significant deposits occurring in Northern Kenya), the lower half of this massive intercontinental resource has yet to make any impact at all on the region's economy.
Remember, these aren't similar or comparable to the oil formations that made the Saudis the richest people in the world...
These are the same formations!
Just think... Over $7.3 trillion of the same oil which flowed into Middle Eastern bank accounts to fund real estate projects like the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa...
Sits untapped underneath the East African landscape.
But why would such unimaginable wealth remain untouched, while the rest of the African continent is teeming with new oil wells?
The answer, unfortunately, has nothing to do with the wealth available to be had — but with the political stability of the region.
Wracked with violence and anarchy for years, Kenya's northern neighbor, Somalia, continues to make headlines today with stories of roving death squads, kidnappings, and piracy on the high seas.
It's a reputation that, up until now, has kept companies and investors at a distance... and not just from Somalia, but from the entire region.
Which means that East Africa, one of the world's richest oil regions, remains the world's least developed.
This, however, is already rapidly changing.
Kenya — the jewel of this energy-rich geology — is now in its third straight decade of political and economic stability.
It's brought riches to the nation through the tourism and transportation industries and turned Nairobi into the biggest, most prosperous metropolis in all of East Africa.
Kenya, having enjoyed years of rapid growth and prosperity, now faces its true destiny.
As global energy prices shoot up and reserves dwindle everywhere they were once abundant...
The real investors are finally staking their claims in this unexploited land.
And their timing makes perfect strategic sense.
You see, finding new sources of oil is no longer a matter of convenience...
It's a matter of survival.
Of course, this isn't exactly news to the oil industry...
In fact, over the last 25 years, a pattern has emerged. And it's about to make investors billions as it repeats itself.
The Missing Link: Kenya
In 2005, these were Africa's top 10 oil producing nations:
Nigeria (Production: 2,600,000 barrels per day)
Algeria (Production: 2,080,000 barrels per day)
Libya (Production: 1,600,000 barrels per day)
Angola (Production: 1,250,000 barrels per day)
Egypt (Production: 579,000 barrels per day)
Sudan (Production: 363,000 barrels per day)
Chad (Production: 249,000 barrels per day)
Congo Brazzaville (Production: 227,000 barrels per day)
Gabon (Production: 226,000 barrels per day)
Viewing the activity in this region of the last 25 years, you can see a pattern taking shape...
Industrial development of the continent began in the West, in the North, and in the South — everywhere but the East.
But gradually, over time, the Eastern frontier has been pushed.
As of five years ago, only the far Eastern nations remain virgin ground, while the rest of the continent pumps 1/8th of the world's daily crude supply.
And taking into account what the Soviet-gathered surveys and USGS geological analyses have told us about the legendary Middle Eastern oil formations extending past the East Africa Rift...
It becomes clear why international energy companies, mining explorers, and institutional investors all have their eyes on a single East African nation: Kenya.
As I mentioned a moment ago, not only has Kenya been stable and peaceful for three decades; but as the regional and transportation hub, it's also East Africa's fastest-growing economy...
What's already happened in the Republic of Congo, in Angola, Nigeria and Sudan... is about to happen again. And people are starting to notice.
Investors are Already Here
As Kenya's economic fortunes rise and its political atmosphere remains more stable than it's been in decades, major industrial players are starting to sink their teeth in.
So far, it's been one of the fastest-moving bull runs the oil industry's ever seen.
In just over a year, this whole thing has climbed to a fever pitch.
It all started in April of 2010 with the National Oil Corporation of Kenya, in conjunction with the government, made an appeal to the national geological community for help in constructing hyper-accurate maps of off-shore and inland oil formations...
The results of the ensuing investigations made it into the hands of oil executives from companies based in North America, Europe, and China. And they pounced almost immediately.
Here's a timeline:
In November 2010, Tullow Oil — a powerful UK-Based oil exploration company — secures contracts to operate on five previously untouched Kenyan properties.
In Feb 2011, U.K.-based integrated gas company BG Group and Dominion Petroleum finalizes plans to open ocean-based drilling projects off the southern Kenyan coast.
Less than a week later, $49 billion petroleum giant Apache enters into negotiations with Origin Energy to develop two more properties in Kenya's Lemu Basin.
And then, the bombshell:
On February 11th, Tullow unilaterally declines a lucrative buyout offer by $110 billion Chinese oil giant CNOOC for several choice pieces of Kenyan exploration properties.
And they had a very good reason to do so...
You see, just miles from these disputed Kenyan properties, across the border in Uganda, Tullow has already made a discovery that's caused the entire petroleum industry to stop what they were doing and scratch their heads:
These discoveries — with a gross resource value of more than $200 billion — have taken place right along the Kenyan border...
And unlike Uganda, Kenya's property extends out to sea where additional deposits have already been mapped out.
So Uganda was nothing more than a dress rehearsal.
The real show is in Kenya.
Any doubt that this is where Tullow is heading was forever silenced in March, when Tullow publically announced a Kenyan drilling start date in August 2011.
And this is still just the beginning for full-throttle East African oil.
On March 28th — less than a week after the Tullow announcement — UK-based oil miner Afren increased its holdings along the Kenya/Tanzania border by 1200 square miles.
With new exploration blocks being negotiated this very moment... it simply couldn't have come at a better time for East Africa.
All the ingredients necessary to realize a full-fledged East African oil boom are in place.
It's a situation that's taken a couple years to set up, and is only now making its true impact.
To show you what I mean, just look at what Tullow's and Afren's stock prices have done since they went into East Africa.
In the last three years at Tullow Oil:
Over 400% gains since they first started exploring this completely virgin oil territory.
This is the last two years at Afren:
From $37 to $170...
That's a 459% gain in less than two years from the start of East African operations.
And this is only where it begins to get interesting...
These two examples are big, established companies with thousands of employees, multi-million-dollar monthly overhead, and infrastructures that would rival small nations.
Tullow, the global oil explorer and one of the region's biggest operators, has recently announced an extensive survey project to begin towards the end of this summer.
Once that happens, new data will flood the marketplace.
And we expect this to send Kenyan junior oil mining prices up — not just for Tullow's own projects, but for everything sharing this common geology.
After that, with new financing streaming in from Wall Street, London, Moscow, and Beijing, this train will leave the station... and never return.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Kenya has no proven reserves, but neighboring South Sudan is sub-Saharan Africa’s third-biggest oil producer, after Angola and Nigeria.
About 14 oil and gas companies including Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (APC), based in Texas, Canada’s Vanoil Energy Ltd. (VEL) and Afren have signed 26 production-sharing agreements with Kenya, Heya said. Vanoil Blocks 3A and 3B acreage [approximately 24,912 km2] in Kenya is situated at the confluence of three rifts development namely Anza graben, Lamu embayment and Mochesa basin.
Also, Simba Energy Inc. (SMB), based in British Columbia, has entered a production-sharing accord for a 7,801 sq km block in northeast Kenya, and the U.S. Geological Survey estimates that there are 71 billion barrels locked in East Africa with the most significant deposits occurring in Northern Kenya. U.K.based Dominion Petroleum Ltd. (DPL) announced it was granted rights to explore in the Lamu Basin. BG Group Plc said in May it signed leasing contracts with the Kenyan government for two offshore exploration blocks.