The East African coast, stretching from Somalia, down past Kenya and Tanzania to Mozambique was long thought to be a region of Africa that, while rich in minerals, was of little interest to international oil companies (IOCs). On the rare occasions that drilling had taken place in this vast and diverse region, it had too often failed; prolific oil seeps had failed to reveal commercially exploitable fields. And when potentially commercial fields had been found, for example in Somalia, political...