Niger Delta province

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The Niger Delta province

The Niger Delta province is a geologic province in the Niger Delta of West Africa also known as the Niger Delta Basin. The province contains one petroleum system, the "Tertiary Niger Delta (Akata-Agbada) Petroleum System" (classified as number 701901), the majority of which lies within the borders of Nigeria, with suspected or proven access to Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and São Tomé and Príncipe. This petroleum system contains as much as 5.5 10⁹m³ (34.5 billion barrels) of recoverable oil and 2.7 10⁹m³ (94 trillion cubic feet) of natural gas at the origin. This field is not a single gigantic field but composed of thousands of individual reservoirs, most of which are sandstone pockets, trapped within oil-rich shale strata.

Oil fields in Niger Delta are not large but are plentiful, with 574 fields discovered (481 oil and 93 natural gas fields). The largest field contains just over 159 million m³ (1 billion barrels). There are many small reservoirs which remain to be explored. Success rate to hit oil in the past of this area is as high as 45%.

The total production of the Akata-Agbada system is about 320,000 m³ (2 million barrels) per day. Remaining proven reserve in 2002 is about 3.5 to 3.8 10⁹m³ (22 to 24 billion barrels). Future discovered oil, estimated by US Geology Survey, is as much as 6.4 10⁹m³ (40 billion barrels), ranking the province as the twelfth largest in the world.