IM IN! black gold mine about to pop!Smaller companies offer more of a pure play for the bolder investor. The newest entrant into the Tano Basin, offshore Ghana, has a large block but a low market cap - Gondwana Oil (CSE: GO). Despite its $15 million market cap, it has managed to secure 1,600 square kilometers of prime real estate. Its holdings are just 30 kilometers from established Jubilee production, and its block shares similar geologic features to Jubilee including water depth and rock age. Its territory sits adjacent to much bigger oil firms – Eni, Hess, Vanco, and Kosmos – four companies that have all discovered recoverable resources. Kojo Annan, son of former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, is on board as an adviser. He has been very active in the Ghanaian resource industry for years, and Gondwana believes his local expertise will be critical. Gondwana has also brought on Douglas Manner as an adviser, who was the former COO of $4.2 billion Kosmos Energy, the discoverer of the Jubilee field. How did such a tiny company get a hold of such lucrative acreage? In a weird quirk of the Ghanaian leasing program, Gondwana’s holdings were originally part of lease owned by Hess and Eni, but the two oil giants were forced to give it up as part of a deal with the Ghanaian government. And personal connections count--having Mr. Annan is big deal for Gondwana. Now the next step for Gondwana will be to turn that valuable real estate into actual production. That leaves the company with several options. A classic strategy would be to farm-out the drilling operation to a larger player in exchange for a percentage ownership. This would allow Gondwana to drill its block while putting drilling costs on another company. Gondwana has said it plans to drill an initial well in calendar 2015. The West African Transform Margin boats an unbelievable 65% discovery rate - something that has scarcely been seen in history in a frontier area. Within this offshore area over 5 billion barrels have been discovered in the last 5 years alone. The Jubilee field offshore Ghana so far is the gem, and acreage immediately adjacent has to give the best odds by far. That should play very well for Annan and Gondwana. By. James Burgess of Oilprice.com