Madagascar Oil plans inaugural commercial production, other IOCs stymied by politics

With its onshore Tsimiroro pilot project poised to start operation in H2 2012, Madagascar Oil expects to be the first company to produce oil from the Indian Ocean island state. It could produce 150,000 b/d of heavy oil by 2019 but, despite such bullish talk, Madagascar’s sulphurous politics are holding back progress on other companies’ blocks, writes François Misser, recently in Antananarivo.