SouthWest Energy is planning to drill three wells in this year and in 2014 in its Jijiga basin concession on Ethiopia's border with Somalia. The company holds a total of 46,000 square kilometers of exploration acreage.

Tewodros Ashenafi, CEO of SouthWest Energy, a native of Ethiopia and the biggest shareholder in the company,  hopes his Ethiopian exploration will become the first indigenous company to make a basin-opening discovery in sub-Saharan Africa's 21st Century oil and gas boom.

Ashenafi hopes, geological similarities with oil-rich Yemen across the Red Sea could help make Ethiopia upto 400,000 barrels a day producer of oil, the combined production of its  western neighbors, the North and South Sudan.

SouthWest Energy  also has acreage in the west, in the Gambella basin bordering South Sudan, and in the nearby Jimma Block.

Ashenafi,  was in London this week to raise $100 million in a private finance placement to finance the drilling.

"Ethiopia, I think, is going to be next", Ashenafi told Reuters by telephone.

"It has huge potential and is very under-explored. The Jijiga basin alone is 367,000 square kilometers. That's larger than the North Sea, and there have only been 50 wells drilled."

SouthWest Energy holds Jijiga blocks 9, 9A and 13. It estimates possible overall oil volume at between 1.5 billion and 3 billion barrels.

Source: Reuters