In 1993 Nigerian President Ibrahim Babangida awarded her company, Famfa Oil, an oil prospecting license which went on to become OML 127, one of Nigeria's most prolific oil blocks.

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She started as a secretary at an investment bank in the 1970s, launched a fashion label for upscale clientele in the 1980s and her Famfa Oil company was awarded an oil prospecting license in 1993.

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Last August Malabu sued Shell, accusing it of colluding with Nigerian officials to snatch its juicy oil prospecting license, OPL 245, a giant block in the deepwater area of the Niger Delta, with estimated reserves of more than 1 billion barrels.

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And with this prospecting the estimates of U.S. oil reserves will certainly increase.

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Equatorial Guinea, which has been issuing lots of prospecting licenses and is seeing its speck of an economy grow at breakneck speed on the back of an oil-exploration boom, could emerge as the region's third-largest producer, with 740, 000 barrels a day by then.

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