Good news keeps on gushing for Tullow

The flow rate of good news at Tullow hit record levels today after the London-listed African explorer says it may have hit the jackpot amid the riches already found in Uganda.

Just a day after the company announced it and its partners had made a major new oil discovery stretching 1000 miles along the West African coast from Sierra Leone to Ghana, Tullow today said that it may have hit its best ever find in the rift basin of Lake Albert.

Tullow said the drilling of the Ngassa-2 exploration well has found excellent reservoir quality and oil as good as that previously found elsewhere in the region.

"The discovery of a significant oil field at Ngassa has the potential to be the largest in the basin," said Angus McCoss, Tullow's exploration director.

Uganda and the Albertine basin discoveries have transformed Tullow's fortunes and made it a darling of the stockmarket, having been catapulted into the FTSE 100 with a market capitalisation of around £10 billion.

The UK independent already has a stake in a 2 billion barrel giant find off Ghana in the Jubilee field and is also part of the new Venus project along the West African coast to Sierra Leone.