One of the world’s poorest regions is also home to the biggest natural-gas discoveries in a decade, luring investors from steel billionaire Lakshmi Mittal to Royal Dutch Shell Plc. (RDSA)

Eni SpA (ENI) and Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (APC) found about $800 billion of gas under the Indian Ocean off Mozambique, 36 times more valuable than the nation’s economy, ranked 213 of 227 countries for per capita income. Explorers in neighboring Tanzania have struck gas fields, and drilling will pick up pace in Kenya this year.

The fields are big enough to support exports of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, opening up a source of energy supply to the world’s fastest-growing major economies, India and China. They are also drawing the interest of the world’s largest oil and gas companies, which prize LNG projects for their decades of generating cash. Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), Shell and BP Plc are the biggest owners of LNG capacity worldwide.

“East Africa is obviously very exciting after being a backwater for a long time,” said Evan Calio, an oil and gas analyst at Morgan Stanley in New York. LNG plants are “big, capital-intensive projects. All the big ones want these.”

Smaller explorers in the region are ready to do deals. Ophir Energy Plc, (OPHR) a London-based African specialist that counts the Mittal family and New York hedge fund Och-Ziff Capital Management Group LLC among its largest investors, says it’s seeking partners to drill off Tanzania. Cove Energy Plc (COV), which holds a stake in Mozambique finds, said Jan. 5 it may sell the company. Anadarko Petroleum Corp. is looking to sell assets.

Buying ProjectsThe world’s largest energy companies have been buying into projects to supply gas to customers in Asia. BP last year completed a... 

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