Africa will supply almost 30% of the world's liquids production increase and more than 25% of global liquefied natural gas (LNG) capacity by 2010, says Ron Mobed, president and chief operating officer of the energy segment of IHS Energy. Today, Africa accounts for about 12% of the world's liquids production. Its contribution to oil-supply growth will be crucial to the global market and to the U.S., where the gap between domestic production and increasing imports has grown, Mobed said at the recent International Petroleum Week energy conference in London. Hydrocarbon discoveries continued to decline during 2004-05 and political restrictions kept many geographical areas off-limits to exploration, he said. Africa's large oil reserves can help meet growing global demand. "Africa's major producing provinces will likely continue to attract huge exploration investments and yield larger-than-average discoveries. Exploration will expand from these successful plays into adjacent countries and provinces, especially on the Atlantic continental margin, where access to export markets is key." IHS reports that discoveries in Africa from 2000-04 have yielded about 25% of international liquids reserves (not including onshore U.S. and Canada) and almost 12% of gas. Nearly 300 billion barrels of oil equivalent (two-thirds liquids) have been discovered in Africa through 2004, 85% of which has been discovered in 10 basins. At year-end 2004, the remaining liquids in Africa totaled about 105 billion barrels of oil, the firm adds. Nigeria has approximately 35.6 billion barrels; Libya, 26.8; Angola, 13.6; Algeria, 14.1; and Egypt 3.4. Africa's sub-Saharan and Saharan countries account for about 11.1 billion barrels, IHS reports. Africa is also expected to offer an additional 4 million barrels of oil a day by 2010, Mobed said. "This growth represents 30% of the projected 13.6 million barrels per day of global capacity growth. Giant deepwater discoveries in offshore sub-Saharan Africa are expected to add more than 2.2 million barrels per day, with Angola and Nigeria being the major contributors." The continent's burgeoning LNG capacity will likely become a growing source for natural gas, Mobed added. At year-end 2005, Africa had 50 million metric tons per year of online LNG capacity out of 173 million metric tons per year globally. Egypt created a train that will accommodate 3.6 million metric tons of LNG annually, and Equatorial Guinea and Angola have already announced their first LNG projects, Mobed said. A fundamental shift is happening in the economic and political controls on oil and gas exploration, he added; national oil companies (NOCs) are becoming more competitive with international and U.S. companies for access to oil and gas resources. IHS data reveals that while NOCs had 95 license-holdings in Africa 10 years ago, that number jumped to 216 by 2005, Mobed said. Some of the active NOCs in the region include Statoil (Norway), CNPC (China), Petronas (Malaysia) and Petrobras (Brazil). Energy companies are flocking to the region's resource potential in spite of the political turmoil in places such as Nigeria. While some African countries have increased their state-take to correlate with perceived higher prospectivity or potential, others have opted to balance fiscal terms with their country's actual E&P performance, he added. "However, on a positive note, many African countries with frontier prospects realize the need to promote their opportunities and to provide investment incentives... Better incentives, combined with higher oil prices, make it possible for oil and gas companies to undertake the risks and considerable costs associated with frontier exploration and development."