Morocco is being looked at as the next new hot place for major oil exploration. In fact, The Herald Sun reports that host of explorers are expected to start exploring Morocco over the next couple of years.

“There is nowhere in the world that I know of that is having this amount of drilling activity at different levels and with various operators,” Tangiers Petroleum executive chair Eve Howell, an experienced oil executive who worked at Woodside and Apache, told the Herald Sun.

Oil companies are already rolling in. There will be at least 10 wells being drilled starting later this year by such major corporations as Galp, Total, Cairn, Kosmos, Chevron, Plains and Genel.

There has been a long history of overlooked exploration possibilities in Morocco. In the 1960s, the offshore Cap Juby oil field was discovered, but the area is still relatively unexplored. There is only one well drilled there for every 10,000 square kilometres compared to the global average of 80.

In all there have been just eight wells drilled since 2000. Because of this low number, the availability of modern 3D seismic mapping should also improve the selection of likely drill targets and the chances of at least one of the drills encountering some oil, reports the Herald Sun.

Tangier’s large Tarfaya field is is of interest as well, as it has the same Jurassic carbonates that hosted Cap Juby. It has the potential to host up to 867 million barrels of recoverable oil in four reservoirs.

Also, Tangiers possesses gas prospects in the Bonaparte Basin south west of Darwin and it is entitled to 27 percent of those after another farmout deal. So of course, any oil discovery in the area will give Tangiers shares a boost.