The U.S. government says it will help Kenya get the financing it needs to build an $18 billion pipeline from the oil fields in the country's northwest to its southeastern Indian Ocean coast to help it become a net exporter of oil. The pipeline would stretch nearly 500 miles from Lokichar in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley to the coastal town of Lamu, and would be an almost impossibly expensive project for the East African nation. Yet there is enough oil there to make the plan worthwhile. The pan-African financial institution Ecobank Transnational Inc. says it has proven reserves of about...