Africa or become the third largest oil producer in the world

According to a report by the South African media recently, PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the world’s four largest accounting firms, recently published a report entitled “Africa Oil & Gas survey 2010”. The report predicts that Africa will become the third largest oil producer in the world. PricewaterhouseCoopers said that Africa is likely to surpass North America in 2011 and become the third largest oil producer in the world after the Middle East and Central and Eastern Europe.

PricewaterhouseCoopers said that previous oil and gas surveys generally focused on a global perspective or based on a country. This survey focused on how multinational energy companies adapt to this new environment in Africa and Africa. Technical processing and improvement in the field of oil and gas exploration and development. This report was made by PricewaterhouseCoopers through investigations and interviews.

The report pointed out that there are still many undeveloped lands in Africa that have extremely rich oil resources. In particular, the African Rift Valley and the offshore areas close to Ghana will become key areas for oil exploration and development. The paradox of most multinational energy companies in Africa's oil and gas industry is obvious. In addition, due to the crude oil leak crisis in the Gulf of Mexico by the BP company, the U.S. government has stopped drilling in the area. This will allow more oil companies to turn to deep-sea drilling in Africa.

In addition, the report also pointed out that although it can't replace the Middle East crude oil, the African region not only has abundant discovered and unexploited oil and gas resources, but also has great potential for discovering world-class new oil fields.

At present, Africa's oil reserves account for more than 9% of the world's proven reserves, and exports account for about 11% of the world's total supply. There are 20 oil-producing countries in Africa, of which Nigeria, Algeria, Angola, Egypt and Libya produce about 85% of Africa’s total oil production. According to analysis, one quarter of the world's increase in oil production in the next five years comes from Africa. Africa has low oil content, good oil quality, low mining costs and a high return on investment. PricewaterhouseCoopers believes that in the process of economic globalization, oil cooperation between African countries has continued to deepen, and remarkable results have been achieved in the introduction of foreign capital for oil development. This is enough to demonstrate the great potential and impact of the African oil market.

In addition, the “vigorous” energy invested by the United States in Africa has made the oil and gas industry in Africa more and more optimistic. U.S. companies led by Exxon Mobil focused their efforts on Nigeria and Angola. Nigeria is the fifth largest oil importer in the United States. Exxon Mobil is preparing to increase its daily oil production in Nigeria from the current 600,000 barrels to 1.1 million barrels in 2011, and Exxon’s Esso Angola exploration The company's investment in the Angolan Kizuba Oil Production Area, with a reserve of nearly 1 billion barrels, has become the largest deep-sea oil development project in West Africa. With the gradual expansion of U.S. company's market share in the oil field in Angola, Angola produced about half of its crude oil exports to the United States and became the ninth largest oil importer in the United States. It is reported that in recent years, 60% of U.S. companies investing in Africa are used for oil development. It is expected that the U.S. imports of crude oil from Africa will increase their share of total imports from 15% today to 25% in 2015.

However, the report, while portraying the good prospects for the development of oil and gas industry in Africa, also pointed out some problems faced by Africa, such as unsound exploration regulations, inadequate infrastructure, prevalence of technologies, shortage of technical resources, and lack of funds for early investment. serious challenge. The International Monitoring Organization had previously stated that the resource-based economic industries in many countries in Africa currently have problems of large-scale corruption, endemic poverty and unrest. In this regard, PricewaterhouseCoopers said that many people in the industry have taken a wait-and-see attitude, either quietly suspend the project or slowly reduce investment in existing projects. In fact, the problem of infrastructure incompatibility and corruption are key factors and major obstacles to the development of Africa. Moreover, most energy companies said in an interview with PricewaterhouseCoopers that exploration regulations, technical resources, and refining capacity should all be important strategic needs of the African oil industry. Only by doing so can the current risk factors of aging oil refineries be reduced. It takes time and money to solve it.