A CONSORTIUM of Canadian and South African companies, Heritage Oil and Gas and Energy Africa, are to start oil exploration in the Ugandan Rift Valley in March, officials said on Sunday. Uganda’s Commissioner of Petroleum Exploration and Exploitation Reuben Kashambuzi said the consortium had adopted the name Eagle Drill, in which each of the two firms will have a 50% stake. Exploration will take place in a 3 100 square-kilometre area near Lake Albert in western Uganda. A drilling rig that is being rehabilitated in South Africa will be shipped to Uganda before the end of the year. – AFP