And more from the conference:East African Nations Plan Joint...

And more from the conference:

East African Nations Plan Joint Oil, Gas Exploration

Feb. 2 (Bloomberg) -- East African countries will jointly explore their ?vast? oil and gas fields to foster development of their economies, Uganda Prime Minister Apollo Nsibambi said.

The cooperation will attract more investment capital and spur economic growth, Nsibambi told a petroleum conference today in Kampala, the Ugandan capital, with giving details on how this will work.

Discoveries of 2.5 million barrels of oil reserves in Uganda and 3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in Tanzania had been made, he said.

East African countries formed a ?strategy on regional refineries development? in 2008, two years after Uganda discovered the oil reserves. Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda and Burundi make up the East African Community bloc.

Uganda will issue more oil-exploration licenses later this year after a new industry law is formulated, Nsibambi said. It has five remaining oil blocks after suspending the awarding of concessions in 2006 pending the new law, he said.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-02-02/east-african-nations-plan-joint-oil-gas-exploration.html