London - As a significant proportion of North Africa struggles with political unrest and growing investor uncertainty, Morocco's oil and gas sector has come to the fore, with the arrival of international majors and independents in search of Africa's next big hydrocarbon province, wrote on Wednesday e-paper Investors Chronicle.
2013 saw a number of significant entrants to both onshore and offshore licenses.
BP, Chevron, Kosmos and Cairn have all announced new projects or farm-ins in the past six months alone, illustrating a rapid increase in corporate appetite for the region.
These major players have commenced targeting the country's potentially significant resource base, particularly offshore with more than 10 wells planned this year, it said.
Advances in prospecting techniques, such as better three-dimensional seismic imaging, and new geologic theories of a link between Morocco and parts of West Africa - and even offshore Brazil - are tempting oil companies to spend hundreds of millions of pounds on high-risk exploration drilling, it added.
The North African country also boasts some of the most favorable fiscal terms in the world for oil and gas projects, as it currently imports more than 90 per cent of its gas and 99 per cent of its oil, it noted.