Offshore Nambia is quickly becoming one of the world’s greatest frontier oil provinces.

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, a few major companies took out oil exploration concessions there from the government of South Africa. In 1974, Shell (NYSE: RDS.A / RDS.B) discovered a gas field off the southwest coast with the Kudu project. Early estimates were 1 trillion cubic feet of reserves, but current estimates range up to 10 trillion. Kudu was big, but nobody much cared about natural gas back then. Gas was too cheap, and southern Africa was too far away.

There was hardly any development around Kudu for the next 20 years. South Africa was under international sanctions due to its apartheid regime, so oil companies and other outside investment stayed away. Almost nothing happened with energy development until Namibia became independent in 1990.

By the early 1990s, the gas field at Kudu intrigued foreign oil companies.

...

In late January, Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM), the world’s most ubiquitous oil giant, capped off a whipsaw year in the global oil markets by reporting net income of $45.2 billion, an all-time record for corporate profits that shattered the former record it had set a year before.

The number was so big and the results beat Wall Street estimates by so much at a time when the credit crisis was wreaking havoc on so many other sectors that Oppenheimer & Sons (NYSE: OPY) oil analyst Fadel Gheit couldn’t help but quip that he didn’t think Exxon “will be lining up for any TARP money or government handout anytime soon.”

Exxon wasn’t the only heavyweight reaping the benefit of a zooming energy market that had seen crude oil climb to an all-time record of $147 a barrel in July. The combined revenue for

...

Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDS.A) is progressing well on its agreement with the Iraqi Government for developing a domestic gas infrastructure in the southern part of the country. Yesterday, the Iraqi oil ministry mentioned that it will be submitting a feasibility report on the project to the Government.

Due to a lack of infrastructural facility, nearly 800 MMcf of natural gas is burned off every day from the Basra oil field in Iraq. The Government wants to utilize this gas for domestic electricity production and export the balance, if any.

In September 2008, Shell and Iraq’s South Gas Company had signed an agreement to produce gas from key oil fields in southern Basra province. For this, they will form a joint venture with Shell holding 49% interest and South Gas Company owning the rest. Both companies are expecting the final deal to be signed within a year.

Royal

...

Brazil is making a national commitment to develop energy resources located far offshore in the South Atlantic. Indeed, no nation has ever advanced such an ambitious plan for long-term comprehensive offshore development. And it’s being bankrolled by China.

Much of Brazil’s South Atlantic development will require drilling wells in waters up to two miles deep, through four-five miles of rock beneath the seabed. The prize at the end will be oil deposits with reserves estimated in the tens of billions of barrels. With access to this offshore bounty, Brazil expects to take its place among the first ranks of energy-producing nations in the world.

Brazil’s state-controlled national oil company (NOC), Petroleo Brasileiro SA (NYSE:PBR) plans to spend over $175 billion in the next five years just on offshore development. The immense investment involves buying and building dozens of new drill ships and seagoing platforms, along with many dozens more support and

...

Geo-political tensions are mounting in the global energy game. And that could make investing in oil right now the trade of the year, says Manraaj Singh. Buying shares of oil majors is a good move now. But Manraaj says quality mid-sized oil companies are best placed to return big profits in the next oil bull run.

This from Fleet Street Invest:

Israeli tanks have just rolled into Gaza…Almost three thousand miles away, Nigerian separatist blew-up an oil pipeline over the weekend…Meanwhile, Russia is locked in a dispute over the price of gas with Ukraine. Today they stopped deliveries of natural gas to Ukraine, Turkey and Europe to force the Ukrainians to pay up…

While fears about political instability drive the price of oil back up again, the OPEC oil barons are tightening the screws on global oil supplies…Oil was trading at just $35 per barrel on Christmas Eve. It’s over $50 this

...

Government mulls mortgage price-control plan… who needs the free market anyway? Dan Denning on the true meaning behind the recent bull market in bonds. Stocks rally on Beige Book release… did the Fed send us the wrong copy? Bill Gross on stock evaluation for the Brave New World of tomorrow. Byron King with anecdotal evidence that oil is well oversold.

The vomit approach continues at the Treasury. This time their throwing up historically low mortgages on the wall… just to see if they stick. The U.S. Treasury is considering a proposal to offer new mortgages at 4.5% through Fannie Mae (NYSE:FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE:FRE). That’s a point and a half lower than the silly “free market” says it should be.

Should this mortgage plan come

...

As the market price of crude oil falls, it reaches a point where the cost of new exploration projects exceeds the potential rewards. And that point is dangerous for small cap GETECH (LON:GTC), which provides specialist geographical data to the oil industry. Tom Bulford says the company may be undervalued, given its strong assets and customer base. But uncertainty over oil prices remains a key risk to operations.

More from Penny Sleuth:

News that Shell is to halt development of its vast Canadian tar sands project is a sign of changing times in the oil industry – and one that will not be well received at the AIM-listed provider of data to the oil industry, GETECH (LON:GTC). This is a pity because last week’s annual results statement revealed a share that looked extremely cheap and prompted an 80% rise in its price from 16p to 30p.

The question that affects ...

A major pullback in European markets recently has contributed to many investors growing concerned about a global economic slowdown. But have European stocks pulled back too far? We met with Zacks senior European markets analyst Santiago Burgaleta, CFA recently to get his outlook.

Were there any major earnings surprises in the just-reported quarter among companies in your coverage?

In the oil sector and among commodities-based stocks, there is one. Total S.A. (TOT) reported net income of 4.73 billion euros ($7.36 billion) versus 3.41 billion euros a year earlier. Adjusted profit was 3.7 billion euros, higher than the 3.1 billion-euro estimate we had.

Total's earnings come after European competitors Shell (RDS.A) and BP Plc (BP) reported earlier this week jumps in dollar-denominated profit of 33 percent and 28 percent respectively but exploration and production [E&P] beat expectations on the back of stronger-than-forecast volume growth, which is

...