States that make up Niger Delta region are the oil producing states of the country. Oil and gas is the major source of revenue for the country and this states are the ones generating the core part of the Nigeria’s budget.
Ondo, Akwa Ibom, Rivers, Delta, Bayelsa, Cross River, Abia, Imo and Edo are the states that make up the Niger Delta region of Nigeria.
Oil exploration in Nigeria dates back to the year 1907 when Nigerian Bitumen Corporation conducted exploratory work in the country though the company left the country at the onset of World War I.
States that make up the Niger Delta region
Nigeria is currently the most populous black nation in the world and the largest economy in Africa with a population of over 170 Million people.
Please note that states of the Niger Delta region are different from the South South geopolitical zone of the country. Many people tend to confuse this two terms.
Here is a post which would give you the list of the 9 states which make up the Niger Delta Region in Nigeria today.
- Akwa Ibom state
- Rivers state
- Delta state
- Bayelsa state
- Cross River state
- Ondo state
- Abia state
- Imo state
- Edo State
After discovery of oil in Nigeria, licenses were given to D’Arcy Exploration Company and Whitehall Petroleum. However they couldn’t find oil of commercial value and they returned their licenses in 1923.
A new license covering 357,000 sq. miles was given to a new firm called Shell D’arcy Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria.
The company began exploratory work in 1937 and was later granted license to explore oil all over the territory of Nigeria. Drilling activities started in the year 1951 and the first test well was drilled in Owerri area. Oil was discovered in non-commercial quantities at Akata, near Eket in the year 1953. Prior to the Akata find, the company had spent around 6 million pounds in exploratory activities in the country.
Shell-BP in the pursuit of commercially available petroleum found oil in Oloibiri, Nigeria in the year 1956. Other important oil wells discovered during the period were Afam and Bomu in Ogoni territory. Production of crude oil began in 1957 and in 1960, a total of 847,000 tonnes of crude oil was exported. Towards the end of the 1950s, non-British firms were granted license to explore for oil: Mobil in 1955, Tenneco in 1960, Gulf Oil and later Chevron in 1961, Agip in 1962, and Elf in 1962.
Prior to the discovery of oil, Nigeria (like many other African countries) strongly relied on agricultural exports to other countries to supply their economy. Many Nigerians at that time thought the developers were looking for palm oil. But after 50 years of the search for oil in the country, Shell-BP discovered the oil at Oloibiri in the Niger Delta and the first oil field began production in 1958.
The economy of Nigeria was expected to experience a strong increase after the first oil field began production but competition for the profits from oil created a great level of terror and conflict for those living in the region.
Many citizens of Nigeria believe that they haven’t been able to see the economic benefits of oil companies in the state. Additionally, Nigerian government officials have remained majority shareholders in the profits created by the production of Nigerian oil, leading to government capturing of nearly all oil production, and citizens are not seeing socioeconomic benefits, and insist that oil companies should compensate people.
There you have it on this post “List of 9 Niger Delta states in Nigeria.” I hope you found this article informative and helpful.
