Africa Oil & Gas: Five oil exploration licences canceled in Zambia

Zambia has revoked five oil exploration licences after the companies failed to comply with the rules, mining minister Christopher Yaluma said on Thursday, without naming the firms.

‘We had given out 17 licences and defaulted a few because of non-compliance and not responding to the licence conditions, so now we have 12 left,’ Yaluma said on the sidelines of a mining conference in Cape Town.

‘If they don’t come at pace with the program we have scheduled for them we will revoke the licences,’ he said referring to the 12 remaining firms.(Source: Reuters)