When did Nigeria make its first crude oil export and approximately what quantity has been produced to date?
Nigeria exported its first cargo of crude oil on 17 February 1958. Shell DArcy predecessor to todays Shell two years earlier, drilled the first successful oil well in Oloibiri, Bayelsa State, near the countrys southern coast. Nigerias production at the end of 2000 crossed the 20-billion barrel mark, of which 6.79 billion represented the production during the first two decades to 1978. At 12.4 billion barrels, production nearly doubled during the subsequent two decades, with cumulative production reaching 19.2 billion barrels at the end of 1998.
