The 100-300 million barrels of oil in reserve was reportedly discovered in three fields in western Uganda, with 30MMbbl ready for extraction.

Several media outlets have reported that Museveni said on Sunday that the country plans to build an oil refinery, which will initially produce 6000-10,000 barrels a day.

Australia's Hardman Resources and partner Tullow Oil discovered three wells in western Uganda in June, where successful testing had confirmed “excellent” reservoir quality and potentially commercial flow rates.

Museveni said the discovery would not lead to corruption or violence, as it has done in other oil-producing African countries.

“The oil of Uganda cannot be a curse,” Associated Press quoted Museveni as saying.

“Oil becomes a curse when you have got useless leaders and I can assure you that we don’t approach that description even by a thousandth of a mile.

“The oil is a blessing for Uganda and money from it will be used for development.”

Meanwhile, on the other side of the continent, the Atwood Hunter has begun drilling the Dana-operated Aigrette-1 exploration well in Block 7 offshore Mauritania, West Africa, Hardman said today.

As of yesterday, the well had been drilled to a depth of 1838 metres and the current operation was drilling ahead, it said.

Aigrette-1 is primarily a gas prospect on trend from the Pelican-1 gas discovery. The primary targets are stacked Cretaceous sandstones with some 0.7 trillion cubic feet potential.

It is in a water depth of 1380m about 43 kilometres north, northwest of the 2003 Pelican-1 gas discovery. The planned Total Depth is 4925m.

Operator Dana Petroleum has a 36% interest in the project, while Gaz de France has 27.85%, Hardman 16.2%, Woodside 15% and Roc Oil Company 4.95%.