LONDON - To East Africa's assets of spectacular wildlife, abundant land and shimmering beaches you can now add gas - so much gas it could transform global energy flows along with some of the world's poorest countries.
Finds announced just last week off Tanzania and Mozambique are estimated to hold enough gas to supply France, Germany, Britain and Italy for at least a year - possibly much more.These and other discoveries in eastern Africa in the past year have sent shares in small explorers soaring, prompted takeover battles and rattled gas producers in other regions.
They are already starting debate about how the resource wealth can bring better living standards rather than exacerbating corruption and distoring eastern Africa's relatively diverse economies just as they are taking off.
East Africa has been emerging as an oil-producing region in recent years, although discoveries in Uganda and most recently Kenya have so far been smaller than in West Africa's giants.
