Eni has embarked on another hunt for the holy grail of East African explorers — a commercial oil discovery — after a frustrating three-year wait.

The Italian major is starting drilling on a high-risk wildcat offshore Mozambique located within a basin that geologists believe has the potential to hold significant volumes of crude.

The search for crude in East African waters has been a chastening experience for the industry, with hundreds of millions of dollars spent over many decades to no avail, although some enormous gas finds have led to a host of mega-LNG projects.