A Few Interesting Facts on Nigeria's Oil Economy

In reading a news article this morning I came across some facts about the oil and gas industry in Nigeria I thought worth sharing. It's just a few simple facts that demonstrate the developing economy of this region, but how it's sadly crippled by sheer corruption of both government and individuals.

• In the past decade, Africa's economy has grown by an average of 5.6% a year, compared with the world-wide growth rate of 3.6% per year, according to the IMF.
• The International Energy Agency expects oil consumption in Africa to surge about 30% to 4.5 million barrels a day by 2018. This jump represents 15% of the world's projected rise in oil demand and makes Africa the world's fastest-growing oil user.
• The are currently four government-run refineries in Lagos, Nigeria, that operate at barely 20% capacity. (This leads to the export of nearly all Nigerian crude production and forces them to import the necessary finished products of gasoline, diesel, etc., removing vital jobs from the economy).
• As much as 400,000 barrels of oil per day -- or one-sixth of total output -- are pilfered from pipelines by bandits. Most of the stolen crude is loaded onto barges at night and shipped abroad.
• Nigeria's government has collected about $1.3 trillion in oil revenue since 1980, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit. Yet about 60% of the country's 170 million people live on less than $1 a day, according to the government.

To me, this last fact is the one I find the most staggering, largely because it is visible everywhere you go. This figure illustrates the obvious misuse of government revenues gained from oil companies - clearly it's not going back to the citizens. The income gap in Nigeria is absolutely astonishing - you're either insanely rich or incredibly poor; there seems to be no middle class. 

There are many more facts out there that could give better evidence and provide a more complete story, but these are just some I quickly fished out of this one news article that I thought seemed basic, and yet telling enough.