Nigeria: An OPEC Country On The Brink Of Collapse

[thackney]

Nigeria: An OPEC Country On The Brink Of Collapse
http://seekingalpha.com/article/3976874-nigeria-opec-country-brink-collapse
May 22, 2016

Summary

Nigeria's problems will likely persist.

Production has dropped from 2.2 million b/d to 1.4 million b/d.

Situation could worsen.

Situation in Nigeria

For a country that produced nearly 2.4 million barrels of oil (NYSEARCA:USO) per day just a few months ago, Nigeria is facing some really serious issues.

A militant group called the Niger Delta has disrupted the country's 2.4 million b/d of production by blowing up pipelines, hassling producers, and threatening to destroy additional oil producing facilities. As a result, Nigeria's oil production has fallen from 2.4 million b/d to 1.4 million b/d and further pressuring a growing nation more and more reliant on its oil as revenue.

Nigeria is a fast growing country. Its economy is the largest in Africa, and its population is expected to grow 2.7% till 2045. What many people don't realize is that some oil producing nations could in-turn become oil consuming nations, and Nigeria looks to be on the trajectory to an oil importing nation by the middle of the century.

The militant group, Niger Delta, served an important role for Nigeria's economy. Nigeria's economy is solely dependent on oil, and the militant group saw a way to profiteer from it. Similar violence occurred between 2006 and 2009, and then president, Umaru Musa Yar'Adua came up with an elaborate plan by offering fighters a pardon and monthly stipends to put down their weapon. After Umaru's death, President Goodluck Jonathan doubled down on this strategy. He awarded the militants security contracts worth millions of dollars, and the militants became protectors of the country.

Since then, things changed.

Nigeria's new President, Muhammadu Buhari, won the election last year with the "anti-corruption" campaign, and as a result, he vowed not to negotiate with the militant group.

The militant group in response has blown Nigeria's oil infrastructure into pieces, and threaten all international oil companies to leave the country....

[TomSea]

Buhari is a bad dude (meant in a positive way) who has been in Nigeria's politics since, I think the early '80s. He might be able to deal with these outlaws; surely, he must have expected something.

NNPC, Shell, Total, Mobil, others fleeced Nigeria of $4.4bn — NEITI

Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/05/nnpc-oil-firms-fleeced-nigeria-of-4-4bn/

I'd read their vibrant press to try to find out what is really going on.

They have 175 million people, so that is over one half our population.

http://www.thetidenewsonline.com/

The Tide is a news source from the Delta area.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

Nigeria: An OPEC Country On The Brink Of Collapse
http://seekingalpha.com/article/3976874-nigeria-opec-country-brink-collapse
May 22, 2016

I got Nigeria on my bucket list to never visit.