The subsea segment of the oil and gas industry is the by far the fastest growing industry in the world today. The global turnover is expected to grow by 30% from today towards 2011. This creates opportunites for companies that are not part of this booming oil anmd gas industry today..

While Nigeria's development of the oil sector has been good for the country's economy, oil sector development has had an adverse impact on the country's environment. Oil extraction in the Niger Delta region has caused severe environmental degradation, owing to the legacy of oil spills, lax environmental regulations, and government complicity during military regimes that once governed the country.

Progress on the WAGP, which will deliver 140 MMcf/d of natural gas to power stations in Ghana, has been moving forward steadily. In November 2004, the World Bank approved a $125 million investment guarantee for construction of the WAGP, and in December 2004, NNPC and its WAGP partners made a FID for implementation of the project.

A significant portion of Nigeria's natural gas is processed into liquefied natural gas (LNG). Nigeria's most ambitious natural gas project, the $3.8 billion NLNG facility on Bonny Island, was completed in September 1999. In January 2006, NLNG sent its first shipment of LNG exports to the United States from its newly-commissioned fourth train.

The OGJ estimates that Nigeria had an estimated 185 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of proven natural gas reserves as of January 2006, which makes Nigeria the seventh largest natural gas reserve holder in the world and the largest in Africa. In October 2004, Nigeria announced that its natural gas reserves could be as high as 660 Tcf. The government plans to raise earnings from natural gas exports to 50 percent of oil revenues by 2010. However, NNPC estimates that $15 billion in private sector investments is necessary to meet its natural gas development goals by 2010

The Joint Development Zone (JDZ), shared by Nigeria and neighboring Sao Tome and Principe (STP), contains 23 exploration blocks and could potentially hold up to 14 billion barrels of oil reserves. Nigeria and Sao Tome have agreed to split revenues from the blocks on a 60:40 basis, respectively.

Deepwater subsea projects may represent the future of Nigerian petroleum by allowing multinational operators to avoid security risks inherent to the unstable Niger Delta region. In March 2005, a new licensing round began that offered a total of 77 deepwater and inland blocks

Shell, Total, Chevron, Agip, and ConocoPhillips are the majors involved in the Nigerian oil sector. Output at Total's Amenam field reached 120,000 bbl/d in January 2005. The Amenam field contains reserves of around one billion barrels of oil equivalent. Total's Akpo field is expected to come online in 2008, with estimated output capacity of 225,000 bbl/d. In 2004, Chevron produced an average of 366,000 bbl/d of oil, while Agip produced 255,000 bbl/d of oil.

In recent months, Nigeria has experienced increased pipeline vandalism. In October 2005, a pipeline fire in the south-western Delta State of Nigeria resulted in the deaths of about 60 people. This was followed by a December attack, in which armed men in speed boats dynamited Shell's pipeline in the Opobo Channel.

Nigeria is the largest oil producer in Africa and the tenth largest producer of crude oil in the world. In 2005, total Nigerian oil production, including lease condensates, natural gas liquids and refinery gain, averaged 2.6 million bbl/d (of which 2.4 million bbl/d was crude oil). With the help of new projects coming online, the Nigerian government hopes to increase oil production to 3 million bb/d in 2006 and 4 million bbl/d by 2010.