S3 Ep. 189 Nigeria's Path to Oil Prominence: Journey from 1903 to 1958

How did Nigeria become a key player in the global oil industry despite a muted start and numerous hurdles? Unearth the untold story of Nigeria's oil exploration journey from 1903 to 1958 with me, Amachree Isoboye, as we uncover the significant yet often overlooked efforts by private British oil ventures. This episode sheds light on the challenges faced by early pioneers like Captain Edward Aljanon Bennett and Nigeria Butamine, led by Berghem, as they navigated financial obstacles and local resistance in their quest for black gold. Discover how these small companies carved a path that would eventually be dominated by giants like Shell.

Join as we recount the trials and tribulations of Nigeria Butamine, the environmental and technical hurdles that stymied their progress, and the broader colonial context that shaped their endeavors. From the aftermath of World War I and the global surge in oil demand to the intricate negotiations and legislative maneuvers that characterized the early oil exploration landscape, we paint a vivid picture of a period marked by ambition, struggle, and resilience. We also highlight the pivotal role played by nationalist leaders and the local communities who resisted the encroachments of foreign oil companies.

Finally, we journey through the complex relationship between Shell /D'Arcy and the colonial government, leading to the formation of the Shell /D'Arcy Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited in 1951. This chapter not only explores the initial opposition but also the gradual alignment of interests that culminated in the significant discovery at Oloibiri in 1956. Through archival collections and contemporary sources, this episode provides a rich historical account, culminating with Nigeria's first shipment of crude oil to Rotterdam—a milestone that heralded a new era in the country's economic history.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:12

Hello there, welcome to the World Cafe podcast. This podcast has been designed with created content that centers on the power of words. Can we really do anything without speaking? Can we really do anything without the agency of words? Yes, that is what this podcast is all about, and I am your host, amakri Isubie, your neighborhood word trader. I believe in the power of words, for it is the unit of creation. I trade in words to profit my world. Hi, yes, something unique.

Speaker 1: 0:55

All right, I'm going to begin this the way I normally do yeah, good morning, good afternoon and good everything wherever you are. Yes, welcome. I usually say this. You hear me say this on the show to the World Cafe podcast, so I want to do something different today. That's why I am in this, should I say, element? First of all, you know the way I always say it how are you? How are you doing? Good, I'm good. Yes, back home it started raining. Yeah, in Abuja it's been raining practically every day, so the weather is somewhat cool now and I like it. Yeah, I do. Okay, you know this space is a safe space. We come in here to lean on one another's experience and to forge a positive path.

Speaker 1: 1:55

So lately I've been going over something. Yes, I stumbled upon it years ago. Yeah, it has to do about my country, nigeria, and yes, I said to myself it's time to share it with you. So I guess you're ready to hear this. It's a little bit about history. Yeah, history, I love history, for obvious reasons. A couple of times you've heard me on this show talk about you know, historical facts and all of that. Yes, and I'll be doing more of reading. It's a material I stumbled upon, like I said, a while ago, years ago, and I think it is the right time to share it with you. All right, then, so it's going to be a long ride, but don't worry, you'll enjoy every bit of it. You know, picking all the juices from here and there Historical facts about Nigeria, and so let's roll.

Speaker 1: 3:00

But before I do anything, I'm going to read a piece. I wrote this some days ago and if you've been listening to my thoughts, you would have come across it. You see, history has this funny habit of repeating itself. What happened once will happen again, and what has been done will be done again. There's really nothing new under the sun, just the same old horn drum dressed up in different clothes. So that is that bit history Now. It's about oil exploration in colonial Nigeria you heard me from 1903 to 1958. Thea Sten that's the name of the guy that wrote I think I want to believe it's a guy, but it sounds like a feminine name. Thea Sten, that's P-H-I-A-S-T-E-Y-N. Sten for the University of Sterling. That's it. So I'm going to read and I want you to follow me, and as I read, there will be some moments of break here and there. Yes, just to like have you know those moments and say one or two things. Then we go back and we all of that moments and say one or two things. Then we go back and we all of that.

Speaker 1: 4:27

Since ag hopkins called an africanist in 1976 to return to the study of imperial business, both as an extension of european and american business, american business history and as an important facet of european colonial rule, a number of studies have been published that address aspects of imperial business history. An area that has remained largely unexplored by Africanists, however, is the history of oil and exploration in colonial Africa, notwithstanding the extensive oil exploration activities during this period, this is not only true of the history of colonies with no known oil deposits, such as Nyazanland I hope I pronounced that correctly where British Petroleum, for example, spent £33,334 on a futile search for oil between 1918 and 1928. The history of oil exploration in many of the African oil producing and exporting states seems to be remarkably brief. Nigeria is no exception, and the published oil historiography includes no article or limiting his focus to the relationship between the Nigerian Butman Corporation and the colonial office between 1906 and 1914. Njezi, on the other hand, concentrated upon the case of Captain Edward Aljanon Bennett in 1907 and the development of oil legislation in 1907, 1914 and 1916, and dealt with other oil exploration activities between 1906 and 1958. So many dates right, rather briefly. Consequently, the accounts of oil exploration in colonial Nigeria are incomplete and leave out more than they include. Apart from these two authors, no standard monograph on the Nigerian oil industry has attempted a detailed examination of the exploration for oil there before the 1950s.

Speaker 1: 7:06

This article aims to make a contribution to Nigerian oil historiography by focusing exclusively on the exploration for oil in the colonial era between 1903 and 1958, when the first shipment of Nigerian crude oil arrived in Rotterdam. It integrates for the first time information in the archival collections found in the British National Archives, the Nigerian National Archives, the British Petroleum Archives, the Shell Group Archives and the private family archives of the oil pioneer Frank Dreda, supplemented by published contemporary sources, in particular the Times and the West African Pilot. The article suggests that, despite the anxiety over Britain's reliance on foreign oil for most of the period, the British government did very little to encourage the exploration of the oil possibilities of Nigeria. Consequently, the initiative to start exploratory work in the colony resided exclusively with private British oil ventures that set out to discover the proverbial spindle top in Nigeria between 1903 and 1914. Small oil companies simply lacked the financial and technological resources to successfully explore for oil in the challenging Nigerian environment. And in the future only the major oil companies would be able to afford the huge financial and technological outlays that were required. Even then, it will take the shell slash d-a-r-c-y. Yes, this will be coming on this name shell slash d-a-c-r-o-i. You know I'll be calling it frequently. So uh, just let's tag along. Joint ventures. 15 years and millions of pounds before discovering commercially exploitable oil resources in Nigeria in 1956. This dominance by the major oil companies would remain a characteristic of the Nigerian oil industry until the 1990s.

Speaker 1: 9:24

Colonial oil exploration further established two additional trends that would characterize the Nigerian oil industry in the independent era. Firstly, that oil was a national priority for the country, regardless of its local impact. Secondly, that the oil industry from the outset formed an enclave in the broader Nigerian economy, with limited interactions, beyond the utilization of local labor, between the general Nigerian economy and emerging oil industry. Okay, we go to this now Butamine and oil exploration. In the early years 1903 to 1914.

Speaker 1: 10:10

The onset of colonial rule in Africa coincided with the expansion of oil exploration in many areas of the globe. Although supply far outstripped demand for crude at that stage, Technological innovations such as the development of the internal combustion engine in the 1890s, opened up new uses for crude oil beyond its initial use, mainly as an illuminating fuel and lubricant. These developments became crucial when the market for kerosene drastically declined after the introduction of natural gas as the main fuel for illumination. In 1914, kerosene constituted only 24.9% of all refined crude oil products, while petroleum and fuel oil made up 63.7%. The latter figure greatly increased in the decades that followed, as motor cars, oil burning steam, locomotives I beg your pardon oil fired industries and oil based naval and merchant vessels became more popular.

Speaker 1: 11:25

The advent of the global oil industry placed Britain in a rather precarious position. It only had a small indigenous shale oil industry based in Scotland, which could not meet the demands for refined oil products in the country. Consequently, british needs had to be met by foreign oil supplies, which had to be transported over long distances at sea. The dependence on foreign oil supplies was especially problematic for the Admiralty, who told with the idea of switching the Royal Navy vessels from coal to oil burning for many years prior to 1912, when Winston Churchill, in his capacity as First Lord of the Admiralty, committed the Royal Navy permanently to oil. Admiralty's interest in fuel oil in the first decade of the 20th century had two important repercussions. Firstly, it meant that they took the lead in the development of an oil policy for Britain, which process began in 1904 when the decision was taken to limit oil concessions in British colonies to British controlled companies. Secondly, it created interest in the oil possibilities of the vast unexplored regions of the British Empire. Though this empire stretched to all corners of the world at the turn of the century, oil was only produced in Burma and Canada by 1900, comprising a mere 1.2% of global production. This increased marginally to 3.8% by 1914, with oil being produced in India, including Burma, trinidad, canada, egypt and Brunei.

Speaker 1: 13:27

The search for a secure supply of oil within the British Empire resulted in the investigation of the oil possibilities of many African colonies, especially along the West Coast, where it was known that the Atlantic Ocean often washed pieces of butamine onshore and where oil seepages occurred over a wide area. While Standard Oil and the Shell Transport and Trading Company played important roles in expanding the oil industry in Europe and the Far East, global exploration in the period leading up to the First World War was largely driven by smaller oil companies, in particular from the United States and Britain, with varying degrees of success. The promise of vast returns on investment captured the imagination of British investors, british investors and attracted substantial British investment abroad, which amounted to over £14.3 million by 1907, increasing over registered in Britain by 1912, which were involved in either downstream or upstream oil-related activities. Many of these companies were small speculative ventures which set out to discover the next spindle top in Eastern Europe and the colonial world, with dismal results. The first companies to explore for oil in colonial Nigeria emerged from this section of the British oil industry, which controlled the first phase of oil exploration in the colony, lasting from 1903 to about 1914.

Speaker 1: 15:23

The search for oil in Nigeria officially started in 1903 when two companies, nigerian Properties Limited and the Nigeria and West African Development Syndicate Limited commenced exploration for bitumen, coal and oil. Their two concessions covered the territory of 400 square miles in the Agabu-Mulakambo area in the Leki Lagoon region of southern Nigeria. I hope I pronounced that well to 1904 and 1904 to 5, and AH Harrison, 1904 to 5, confirmed the existence of vast bitumen deposits as well as the possibility of petroleum. They reported on their findings, noting that, I quote notwithstanding the shallow depth at which the deposits occur and the tropical heat of the territory, the butyminous deposits so far located are in a plastic condition. This seems to show that there is still a flow of liquid from the original source and gives the expectation that oil exists in considerable quantity. End quote.

Speaker 1: 16:51

The activities of Nigerian properties, the Nigerian and West African Development Syndicate and a third concession holder, the Northern Nigerian Exploration Syndicate, were very limited. This changed after 1905, when the British businessman John Simon Begham became interested in the oil possibilities of the colony. Begham had extensive experience in the European oil industry, in particular in Galicia and Romania, and was also the co-founder and co-owner of the Galizic that's a big word Carpathen Petroleum, antigesishat forgive me, that sounds like an Eastern meme. He became interested in Nigeria in 1905, at a time when the vast majority of British oil investments were made in Eastern Europe and the Americas and established the first oil company that would undertake a serious exploration for butamine and crude oil in southern Nigeria. The Nigerian Boothman Corporation was founded in November 1905 with the aim to acquire and work the exploration concessions of Nigeria properties and the Nigerian and West African Development Syndicate Don't forget, those are two companies. The concessionary area was expanded in November of 1906 when the company bought the concession of the Northern Nigerian Syndicate which was situated adjacent to that of the Nigerian Bootmen in the Lekilagun area and many other authors. Nigeria Bootman was not a German company. It was a British registered company and its shares were traded on the West African market of the Stock Exchange in London.

Speaker 1: 18:54

Like many other smaller British oil companies prior to 1914, begum actively worked toward establishing closer cooperation between the British government and Nigerian Butmin. His request for state financial assistance in 1906 was not out of the ordinary. Indeed Jones notes several requests from the oil companies for financial assistance from the state, such as the request for a government loan of £10,000 made by the West Indian Petroleum Company in 1903. These requests increased greatly after the failure of many British oil investments in MyCorp in Russia made money markets less enthusiastic about the funding of the speculative oil ventures. After 1910, in return for government financial assistance, many oil companies offered the admiralty the right of preemption, which would have ensured a secure outlet for any oil that the companies might find. They were also not averse to offering the British government stakes in the companies because, as Jones points out, government governmental involvement would ensure financial assistance protection in foreign countries in the form of diplomatic support and sought after naval fuel oil contracts. The British government, however, was not only reluctant to grant requests for financial assistance, but was further unwilling to become directly involved in the British oil company, regardless of the attractiveness of the offer. This state of affairs would only change in 1914 when the government at the origin of the Admiralty became a majority stakeholder in the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, later renamed the British Petroleum Company, with 51% of the shares.

Speaker 1: 21:03

In 1906, berghem entered into lengthy discussions with the Admiralty and the Colonial Office in an attempt to secure governmental financial assistance to explore the oil in southern Nigeria. The British government only approved the loan of £25,000 towards the end of 1907, and the first installment was paid in February of 1908. Begum's success in securing the loan was in no small part due to his own persistent nature and the fact that his request was enthusiastically supported by the Governor of Southern Nigeria, sir Walter Egerton. According to Calland, egerton held strong views on the role of the government in economic development and believed southern Nigeria would only develop economically with the financial assistance from the colonial government. To this end, he embarked on the development projects that greatly improved the infrastructure, encouraged the exploitation of non-mineral resources and sought expansion of existing agricultural exports and the development of new agricultural exports. It was within this context that he supported the granting of the loan to Nigerian Butamine, though it is clear from the consulted sources that oil did not figure in this development planning for the colony. Oil of commercial quantity and quality had to be discovered first before the colonial government would start to factor this sector into their development plans for Nigeria.

Speaker 1: 22:48

Nigeria Butchman's operations commenced in 1906 under the guidance of their manager, frank Dreda. He was a Canadian of German descent with practical oil experience in Canada and Galicia, from where most of the crew also came, in Canada and Galicia, from where most of the crew also came. Its operation had an enormous impact on the local environment in Lekki, lagoon, as vast tracts of land were cleared to make room for houses, a tramway and a drilling site, not to mention the pollution that resulted from the oil discoveries and spillages. This site also served as the company's headquarters in Nigeria and it had limited involvement in the colony beyond the utilization of local labor. It originally intended to search for both butamine and crude oil, but the search for oil became their main focus from 1908 onwards. Between 1908 and 1912, nigeria Butamine drilled about 15 wells in their Lekki Lagoon concession Under the supervision of A Mr Van Sickle.

Speaker 1: 24:03

Oil was struck in November 1908 at well number five, which was drilled with their new oil rig purchased with their government loan. As Dreda explained in a letter to his wife on 24th September 1909, however, well number five did not turn into the anticipated active oil field and had a significant environmental impact. We got I quote, we got well number five on oil again and it started to flow at the rate of about 2,000 barrels per day. But after it had flowed a few hours at this rate it came on hot. It came on hot water and we are only getting about 50 barrels of oil from it now. I expect there was great excitement in london when they got the news that sugo was flowing that's the name of the site, sugu was flowing so much oil. The lagoon is at present all covered with oil and there was so much oil at our wharf here that the doctor got all covered last night when he went in swimming, which he does every evening. End of quote.

Speaker 1: 25:30

The company's most successful discovery was from well number 12, which yielded oil of a good quality without gas, and which was described by the foremost petroleum expert in Britain, sir Boverton Redwood, as by far the most important event which has occurred during the company's operations. Redwood's favorable report helped increase the value of Nigeria Bootman shares in 1911, when the company ultimately proved unable to exploit its findings profitably. They struggled in particular with water intrusion and did not possess the necessary equipment to separate out the water that flowed continuously into some of its most promising wells. In addition, they found the Nigerian environment challenging, with their lurky lagoon concessions often inundated with water during the rainy season. They were also limited in their choice of drilling sites by the swampy nature of the terrain and the lack of infrastructure, and found the local communities unwilling to share information on the location of the most promising Butumene outcrops.

Speaker 1: 26:52

Financial difficulties impeded the expansion of exploratory work and by July of 1912, nigeria Butumene had only enough capital to continue its operations for another six months. Begham consequently appealed to the Colonial Office for another loan but died shortly thereafter, in December 1912, in an automobile accident. Despite the support of the Admiralty, the loan was not approved mainly because of three factors. Firstly, begum's death meant that the crucial link between Nigeria Butmin and the Colonial Office was removed and the company simply had no other proponent of Begum's caliber and persistence. Secondly, in the departure of Governor Egerton, replaced in 1912 by Sir Frederick Lugard, nigeria Butmean lost another of its most enthusiastic supporters and the only person who could convince the rather high-fisted officials in the colonial office to approve the loan. Egerton had been rewarded by the colonial office for his development work in southern Nigeria by being demoted to the post of governor of British Guiana. Thirdly, as mentioned above, the failure of most British oil investment in Russia made not only the money markets but also the British government very long time to invest in speculative oil venture after 1910, due to a lack of capital, due to a lack of capital.

Speaker 1: 28:39

Nigerian with me sees all operations in Nigeria by the end of 1913 and the company was liquidated in 1914. It was its liquidation rather than the outbreak of World War I. As Njezi Afrinas argued, that led to the termination of the activities of Nigerian Butmin in the colony. Nigerian Butmin was not the only company to explore for oil in Nigeria before 1914, although its competitors were very less successful and less is known of their operations.

Speaker 1: 29:18

Colonial office correspondence with the Southern Nigerian government lists inquiries about oil exploration licenses received from the British Colonial Petroleum Corporation Limited. Captain Edward Algaron Bannet and Rose One Limited. Njezi discuss the case of Bannet in detail, calling it rather dramatically a protracted and disgusting incident of oil concession and tussle. Bennett was an oil speculator who, despite paying a deposit and rent on an oil concession covering about 100 square miles in southern Nigeria in 1907, was never granted a concession by the colonial government. These minor details did not stop Bennett from attempting to sell his concession in Britain at an inflated price, which in turn incurred the wrath of the southern Nigerian government, the colonial office and Nigerian bootment. Bennett's activities ensured that the colonial government included measures to discourage oil speculation in the colony in its 1907 Mining Regulation Oil Ordinance. This affair did not adversely affect the relationship between Barnett and the colonial office, whose officials were of the opinion that future applications from Barnett would receive very sympathetic consideration.

Speaker 1: 30:57

In the end, only the British Colonial Petroleum Corporation proceeded in searching for oil in the colony. The company was incorporated in London in December of 1908 and emerged out of the Nigerian Investment Company, which had been granted an oil exploration license over an area of 225 square miles in southern Nigeria in January of 1906. The Nigerian Investment company started exploratory and development work in its concession in October of 1906 under the supervision of Bernard A Collins. In this process, 13 shallow boreholes with an average depth of 100 feet were sunk in order to prove whether the oil line was satisfactory. In each case, the drill passed through or finished in oil sand. Collins' positive findings led to the creation of the British Colonial Petroleum Corporation, which was taxed with the exploring for oil in the Nigerian investment company concession. Both the board of the new corporation and their financial arrangements clearly illustrated the close relationship among the many small British oil companies, in particular those with West African interests. Its first chairman until December of 1908 was Bergman from Nigerian Bhutmin, while George Wellington Statham, the director of the Nigerian Investment Company, was appointed a director. Statham, along with the former chairman of the Nigerian Investment Company, were also on the board of the.

Speaker 1: 32:42

This is a long French word. Société François de Petrole I hope I got it correctly limited, incorporated in London in February of 1907 to explore the Tano Lagoon region in the Ivory Coast, a company chaired by Begum of Nigerian Boutmine, of Nigerian butamine. The Nigerian investment company in turn held a considerable share in the Société François de Petrole, as it did in the Gold Coast Oil and Butamine Corporation Limited, floated in London in December of 1908 to search for oil in the Apollonia district. According to its chairman, hj Brown, the Nigerian investment company had in 1907 a shareholding in every company that explored for oil and boot men in West Africa. In many of these companies they cooperated in one way or another with the Nigerian Bootmen Corporation. The latter also became involved in the newly incorporated British Colonial Petroleum Corporation through a financial and operational agreement in which Nigerian Bootmen was contracted to act as agents and managers for the new company for a period of two years. As compensation, nigeria Bootman received shares and 10% of the net profits. The Nigerian investment company provided British Colonial Petroleum with a cash capital of £35,000 to explore for oil in his concession situated in the Benin district close to the Benin River and the coast. Under the direction of its oil engineer, dp Brown. The company explored unsuccessfully for oil for four years. In its last operating year in Nigeria, 1913, the company spent just over £5,052 before seizing operations in the colony focused exclusively on its Romanian concession in a joint venture with Sphinx Petroleum Company Limited. In 1924, the company went into voluntary liquidation and was finally wound up in 1930.

Speaker 1: 35:18

Even though Nigerian Butmin never managed to set up commercial oil operations in Nigeria, its chairman Begham made a lasting contribution to the colonial oil industry through its involvement in the development of bigger pattern of oil legislation. From the start, begum maintained that the general mining legislation was not adequate to regulate the oil industry. Consequently, he lobbied the Colonial Office and Southern Nigerian Government for the development of specific oil regulations modeled mostly on the Trinidad oil mining law, the Southern Nigerian Mining Regulation. Oil Ordinance of 1907 was drafted by Frederick Butler and Charles Stachy, clerks in the Nigerian department in the colonial office and unnamed governmental legal advisor. In line with General British Oil Policy which determined in 1904 that oil exploration concessions in British Empire should preferably only be granted to companies registered in Britain or its colonies, a 1907 ordinance made the search for oil in Nigeria a British monopoly. Section 15 of the ordinance further specified that all members of the directorate of these companies be British subjects. This principle was retained in the 1914 Mineral Oils Ordinance, which applied to all areas in the newly amalgamated Nigeria, and its 1925, 1950, and 1958 amendments. These versions, however, allowed for the inclusion of the non-British directors, provided that the director, the chairperson and the majority of other directors were British subjects. It's getting more interesting, isn't it? Directors were British subjects. It's getting more interesting, isn't it? Section 7, sub 2 of the 19-. Section 2, I beg your pardon of the 1907 ordinance also limited the size of concessions to 500 square miles, which was considerably larger than the five square miles that was considered early in the drafting process. While the colonial government strictly enforced this limit, the whole Section 7 was omitted from the 1914 ordinance because the colonial government felt that the discovery of oil by Nigerian putmen had rendered this clause a dead letter. In future, the colonial government would only enforce rule one of shallow two of the 1907 ordinance, which stipulated that applicants must provide full details on the size, location and boundaries of the concessionary area in their applications.

Speaker 1: 38:25

The 1907 ordinance was drafted without consultation with the legation, the legation eli elitist and native native authorities. The unofficial africa members of the legislative council found section 5 of the new ordinance unacceptable because it gave the governor the right to enter into agreements with native authorities over the purchase of both surface and subsurface mineral rights on their lands without the payment of the royalties on oil. One of the unofficial members of the Legislative Council, cs Sapara-Williams, proposed an amendment on Section 5 during the discussion of the ordinance in the Council, suggesting the session be expanded to guarantee Native authorities a fair and reasonable proportion of the royalties received from the mineral oils obtained from their land. This proposed amendment was supported by all the unofficial African members of the council but was rejected by the official members and the governor, who held the majority of votes. The Lagos standard commented on this ordinance and the rejection of the amendment that I quote. If the ordinance becomes law, or rather when it does become law, it will give to the government and the European prospector the kennel of the oil mining business, leaving to the native the shell, in other words, business leaving to the native the shell, in other words, giving him the doubtful privilege of working to enrich the white man.

Speaker 1: 40:12

By 1914, no commercial corporation was actively searching for oil in the colony, even the Mineral Survey of Southern Nigeria, which was established in 1903 to explore for and collect minerals in the region with the aim of finding commercially viable resources, showed limited interest in the oil possibilities of the colony. During the course of their work in 1913, the Mineral Survey did find traces of oil at Abagana, 13 miles east of Onitsha in the Oka district. The survey was at that time, however, focused on developing the black bituminous coal deposits that were discovered in 1909 along the Enugu Udi encampment. It is clear from their reports that the Mineral Survey opted at an early stage to leave oil exploration to the private oil companies, preferring instead to frequently visit and inspect the exploration sites of the various companies that operated in Nigeria between 1903 and 1914, and to cooperate closely with these companies through the sharing of scientific and geological information and specimens. This trend would continue after the Geological Survey of Nigeria was established in 1919, and none of its annual reports, bulletins or, occasionally, papers makes any reference to the Geological Survey being actively involved in any oil exploration activities throughout the colonial era. It therefore seems that the traces of oil discovered by the Mineral Survey in 1914 and the Geological Survey in 1928 were incidental to the real focus of their investigations and were consequently not acted upon. Real oil exploration in colonial Nigeria was left to be conducted by oil companies. Revival of interest 1918 to 1923.

Speaker 1: 42:30

The central role played by refined crude oil products in the world war one ensured the massive expansion of the global oil industry after the war. As oil companies sought to increase the global supply of oil to meet shortfalls experienced immediately after the war and to prepare for the projected explosion in the demand for crude oil products in the years ahead, the search for oil in the British Empire was prioritized by the British government in their quest to lessen the country's dependence on American oil, which supplied around 80% of Britain's total crude oil needs by the end of World War I. At that stage, imperial oil production only made up 2.5% of global production, and these increased to 1.6% by 1927, of which only estimated one-tenth reached the British home market. Despite Britain's anxiety over the dependence on foreign oil supplies, the government did very little to promote the actual exploration for oil in the empire and offered no special subsidies or inducements to oil companies if they undertook oil exploration in the colonies. In addition, the British government continued to exclude non-British oil companies from empire oil, despite regular demands made by the American government that the British open up their colonies to oil companies that were wholly owned and controlled by American interests. Against this backdrop, the the key problem for the British government was to convince British oil concerns to take up oil exploration in the empire.

Speaker 1: 44:25

Only two companies were interested in the oil possibilities of Nigeria in the post-1918 period, namely the DARCY Exploration Corporation and the Whitehall Petroleum Corporation. Exploration Corporation and the Whitehall Petroleum Corporation. For both the Nigerian operations formed part of deliberate attempts to expand their operations to other parts of the world, and it was undertaken more in the hope than belief that commercially exploitable oil resource would be found in the colony. The operations would not last long and by 1923 both companies gave up on their hopes of finding oil in Nigeria, thereby ending the very short second phase in the search for oil in the colony and consequently strengthening their view that the challenging Nigerian environment compromised the search for oil resources, if indeed they existed.

Speaker 1: 45:26

The DARCY Exploration Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, became interested in Nigeria in 1918. And as part of a wider strategy by the company to extend their interests beyond Persia, according to Ferrier, the chairman of Anglo-Persian, sir Walter Greenway, was determined to develop its company in such a way that it would compete with Royal Dutch Shell and Standard Oil, those two big names. Shell and Standard Oil, those two big names. The massive expansion of the company's concessionary interests formed an integral part of Greenway's plans, and these interests took the company to areas such as Kuwait, colombia, venezuela, papua, new Brunswick in Canada, the Gold Coast, nigeria, borneo and Timor. In most of these regions, the Anglo-Persian relinquished its concession in the 1920s, mainly because of unsatisfactory geological evidence, but also because of unacceptable terms and conditions imposed by some host government.

Speaker 1: 46:43

After John Cadman, greenway's successor as chairman, in 1927, formed the field refinery and geological department in 1922, the company became more discerning in choosing its concession around the globe and now had the necessary geological expertise to make more informed decisions. It is in this context that Greenway approached the Crown agents and the Nigerian colonial government on behalf of the DARCY explorationRCY Exploration Company in January of 1918 with the aim of obtaining an oil exploration license. Showing good business sense, fred G Watson from DARCY pointed out in his correspondence with the crown agent that the company would have no objections to providing oil that conformed to the latest admiralty specifications. The arocy's exploration license was granted after protected negotiations on 28 February 1921 and cover the area expanding from the border with Dahomey, that's in Benin, benin Republic, now in the west, to the Niger River, at the Akasa mouth in the east, extending 50 miles inland from the sea D-A-R-O-C-Y choice of concession. By the way, akasa is in Nigeria, just to portray that brass, to be precise, southern Nigeria. Darcy's choice of concession area was directly influenced by Nigeria Bootman's oil discoveries in previous years and has obtained detailed information on its concession from Mr Van Sickle who had headed Nigeria boot men's drilling operations.

Speaker 1: 48:44

Limited documentary evidence was found of DARCY oil exploration activities in the sources consulted. Two men from DARC visited the region in March of 1922 to explore for oil, while the company also contacted Dr JD Falcone, the director of the geological survey, in 1923 to request that he undertake geological investigations on its behalf. These requests came too late in the dry seasons to allow for geological work during 1923. A company publication claimed in 1970 that the team embarked upon extensive reconnaissance work and geological survey which by oil industry standard was said to be tough and arduous. This claim is rather excessive since DARCY spent only £1,290 exploring for oil in the Nigerian concession. In Africa alone. The company spent more money on oil exploration in Niazi land, that is, 33,334 pounds, somaliland 6,935 pounds, the Sudan 2,265 pounds, southwest Africa 2,056 pounds and Uganda 1,761 pounds Between 1918 and 1923. Beyond 1923, no reference is made to DARCY and it is therefore assumed that it allowed its exploration license to lapse when it came up for renewal in February of 1924. Whether this action was influenced by the views of the well-known British geologist EH Coneyhan-Greig's advisor's opinion in November 1922 is open to debate. Greig declared to the company's chief geologist that the report on southern Nigeria adds nothing to what I knew in 1906. It is not worth spending an other cent on the concession.

Speaker 1: 51:11

By the time Whitehall Petroleum Corporation had also given up all hope of finding oil of commercial quantities in Nigeria. Hope of finding oil of commercial quantities in Nigeria. Whitehall formed part of Lord Cowdray's companies S Pearson and Son. That also included the successful Mexican oil company El Agula, and the United States incorporated Amereda Petroleum Corporation. El Agula was sold to Royal Dutch Shell in 1919, generating profits that enabled Whitehall to widen the geological scope of its exploration activities to include India, argentina, bolivia and Nigeria and to expand its exploratory work in Algeria and Trinidad.

Speaker 1: 52:00

Whitehall became interested in Nigeria in 1920 and approached the Crown agents about an oil exploration license on 8 June. An exploration concession was granted on 13 June 1921 and covered the territory from the boundary of British Cameroons in the east to the Niger River at the Akasa mouth in the west, stretching from the shoreline to the seventh degree of the northern latitude. Whitehall's geological party, headed by LD Berlin, spent much of 1921 investigating the concession. After submitting their report, whitehall's board decided to relinquish all their rights under the concession in March of 1922 because the conditions did not justify test drilling. Shell DAROC in colonial Nigeria 1936 to 1958, is getting more interesting now.

Speaker 1: 53:06

So the DARCY Exploration Company revived their interest in Nigeria in the 1930s, which started the third and final phase of oil exploration in colonial Nigeria. This interest ran against a wider trend observed by Bambeg, who claims that the Anglo-Iranian oil company was less interested in pursuing concessionary interests outside the Middle East and South America in the 1930s than it was in the 1920s. In his view, this was mainly due to the size of the Iranian oil deposits and the fact that there was excess productive capacity on a global level during the decade. The AROCY's renewed interest was sparked by a promising report written by one of their geologists, bkn Wiley, in 1933, which once again focused attention on the widespread occurrence of oil and bitumen seepages along the Nigerian coastline. These and subsequent geological reports persuaded DCY to return to Nigeria, even though the company's geologist had to admit that most oil indications along the West Coast consisted of so-called dead oil, that is, bituminous sand viscous oil and peach lakes, limos, sand viscous oil and peach lakes.

Speaker 1: 54:41

This time, darcy did not go into Nigeria alone, but did so in partnership with Royal Dutch Shell, hereafter called Shell. It is unclear why DARCY opted for a joint venture with Shell. By the mid-1930s, shell and Anglo-Iranian were already cooperating in marketing petroleum products in the Middle East and Africa through their co-owned Consolidated Petroleum Company, created in 1928. They also merged their British marketing subsidiaries in the early 1930s and agreed on a joint venture in exploring for oil in New Zealand in 1938. In the absence of documentary evidence, a plausible explanation for DARCY and Shell's decision to cooperate in Nigeria in the 1930s might be found in the British Control Clause of the colony's Min oil ordinance, which barred Dutch-controlled Shell from exploring for oil in the colony. The plausibility of this suggestion is strengthened by correspondence between DARCY and the Colonial Office, in which the latter advised DARCY to delay applying for an oil exploration license until 1938,. According to the Colonial Office, the government was in the process of changing the model mining licenses and leases to reflect announcements made in Parliament in June of 1936 that foreigners and foreign-controlled companies would be allowed to operate in the colonial empire from 1938 onwards. It was pointed out that should DARCY choose to apply before these new regulations were in place, then the company would have to conform to the British Controlled Clause in existing mineral oil regulations. In the end, however, this clause was not removed from the Nigerian Mineral Oil Ordinance, which in turn created problems for the joint venture in 1948, when the Directorate of the Shell Overseas Exploration Company had a majority Dutch membership. Consequently, the company was forced to change the composition of its directorate to satisfy the British Control Clause in the Nigerian legislation.

Speaker 1: 57:22

On 10 August 1936, a joint application was submitted to the Colonial Office in the names of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and the Anglo-Saxon Petroleum Companies, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Royal Dutch Shell Group of Companies, for exclusive permission to explore for oil over the whole of Nigeria, kenya and Tanganyika Tanganyika, I think, presently is Tanzania. In Nigeria, a complication arose in the form of major seabourn markets who submitted an oil exploration application in May of 1936. Max had applied that's the name of the company. Max had applied for an oil exploration license in 1931 for an area covering about 30,000 square miles in southern Nigeria. After the colonial government informed him of the conditions under which they were prepared to grant the concession, he opted not to pursue the application. His 1936 application covered much of the same territory as the original application and was turned down by the colonial office In favor of that Anglo-Saxon DARCY, which the colonial office believed would take its oil exploration activities more seriously and who were more likely to succeed. In December of 1936, the colonial office informed Anglo-Saxon D-A-R-C-Y of their decision to grant the joint venture an exclusive exploration license covering the whole mainland of nigeria. This license was issued in 1937 and the december 1937 the same anglo-saxon petroleum company was replaced by that of the shell overseas exploration company.

Speaker 1: 59:14

Limited on the official license, shell D-A-R-O-C-Y started geological survey in early 1937 under the direction of Dr Evan, the head of their geological party, and a Dr Carr, a geophysicist, from their headquarters in Enugu. Geological and geophysical surveys were carried out in southern Nigeria around Enugu, othakot, nsukka, okiwe, afiko encampments, along the Niger and cross rivers and over Benin City and Focados. Geological core drillings were also undertaken, starting near Uge Eme in June. Uge Eme is the name of a place, in June of 1938.

Speaker 1: 1:00:06

By the end of 1939, shell D-A-R-O-C-Y had spent about £70,000 exploring for oil in Nigeria. Their exploration activities in Kenya and Tangayika, on the other hand, had proven unsuccessful. Kenya and Tanganyika, on the other hand, had proven unsuccessful, and the joint venture suspended work in these colonies to focus exclusively on Nigeria. The outbreak of the Second World War complicated matters. At the urging of the Petroleum Department of the British Ministry of Fuel and Power, geological and geophysical and topographical survey work was continued in 1940, costing the joint venture a total of £72,303. By 1941, however, it no longer seemed feasible to continue with oil exploration in Nigeria, and in February of 1941, the colonial office informed the companies that the governor of Nigeria had agreed to the suspension of operations.

Speaker 1: 1:01:08

Shell D-A-R-C-Y resumed its Nigerian operations only in 1946, owing to the difficulty of obtaining suitable staff and equipment in the immediate aftermath of the war. Their initial exploratory work had showed that the most favorable oil yielding structures lay in eastern Nigeria, where they started work in 1946 in the Oweri, okigwe and Oumuahea regions. Two large camps were developed on crown land at Oweri and Okigwe after the war, which were connected with exploration sites by helicopters. The Oweri camp in particular expanded very quickly and developed into the operational headquarters of Shell DARC and remained so until the headquarters were moved to Port Harcourt in 1961. For those of you who live in Port Harcourt you know that place.

Speaker 1: 1:02:06

Oil exploration in the post-World War II era took place within the context of Britain's post-war recovery, an attempt to strengthen the generally weak sterling against the American dollar and the commencement of development projects in the British colonies after the passing of the 1945 Colonial Development and Welfare Act. Oil exports from Nigeria did not feature in the British government's plans to increase exports from the colonies in order to earn much-needed dollars. Nor did it feature in the 1946 Nigerian 10-Year Plan for Development and its 1951 revisions. This was because oil of commercial quality and quantity had not yet been discovered in Nigeria. Nigeria. Consequently, like previous administrations, the post-war Nigerian colonial government could not make any definite development plans within the oil sector, nor plan any expenditure based on expected oil reserves.

Speaker 1: 1:03:14

While the emerging oil industry did not make it onto the colonial government's official development agenda, shell the arcy did receive greater support from the nigerian government than any oil company had in the pre-1945 period. This support found expression in the charging of very low fees for temporary occupation license, such as the initial $1 per annum fee. Hear that again. $1 per annum fee charged for the leasing of 175,000 square yards on crown land in Okigwe in 1948, which increased to £5. Did I say $1? I meant £1. £5 per acre in 1949. And in making available more land in Oweri for the company as its operations expanded. More importantly, the government openly supported joint venture and its exploration activities in the face of strong local opposition in some districts at the end of the 1940s.

Speaker 1: 1:04:28

The open support for Shell DARC by the colonial government should not only be viewed within the narrow confines of governmental support for economic development, but also within the context of Nigerian decolonization and the conflict between the Nigerian administration and the well-organized nationalist movement in eastern Nigeria, led by Dr Nnamdi Azikewe and the National Council for Nigeria and the Cameroons NCNC. As was the case in many African colonies, world War II greatly influenced the Nigerian nationalist movement and after the war, azikiwe and the NCNC became vocal opponents of most of the initiatives implemented by the unpopular governor, sir Arthur Richards. The passing of the so-called obnoxious ordinances in 1945 was no exception, and Ezekiel and the NCNC rallied popular support in much of southern Nigeria in opposition to these ordinances. One of these was the Mineral Ordinance, which restated the claim that mineral rights were vested in the crown. According to Coleman, the nationalist movement interpreted this to mean the confiscation of Nigeria's minerals by the British government, along with their land, through two other obnoxious ordinances. These ordinances translated into renewed control by the British government at a time when nationalist leaders expected that controls would be relaxed and consequently they were passionately opposed by the people in southern Nigeria under the guidance of Ezekiel Way.

Speaker 1: 1:06:19

Along with the willingness to publicize and actively support all grievances of local communities against the colonial government and European interests in his newspapers brought local opposition to Shell DARC's exploration activities into the open. The secretive nature of the joint ventures activities and its unwillingness to inform local communities of what exactly it was doing in their territories had already led to the questions being asked in the Legislative Council in March of 1940 by land owners in the Okigwe and Afiko areas regarding the nature of their operations, their claims to land and the size of their concession. Shell DARCA's lack of communication with local communities stemmed mainly from the legislative context in which they operated in Nigeria. The Mineral Oils Ordinance did not require the joint venture to obtain permission from any landowners to conduct exploratory work. But it did guarantee the Oil Exploration Party's protection from any person who might interfere with their work, who was liable, on conviction, to be fined or imprisoned. The only protection the ordinance provided for local communities was the offer of compensation payable to local communities for the destruction of economic trees and crops by all exploration parties at rates set by the district officer.

Speaker 1: 1:07:55

As mentioned earlier, shell, the ARC's exploration work after 1946 focused initially on the Oweri, okiwe and Omoahea regions, which were already densely populated and where Azikiwe and the NCNC enjoyed strong support by that time. Consequently, when the Ikeduru people rose up in opposition to the Joint Ventures Exploration Party headed by a Mr HS Marchant in late 1948. As Ikewe's paper, the West African Pilot was quick to publicize this opposition and to lend strong support to the Ikeduru people in a number of editorials. The Ikeduru people firmly rejected the governmental claims to the right over all minerals on their land and refused to grant permission to the government or any company to mine these minerals. They were therefore requested the colonial government to order both the Owera district officer and Shell DARSC to stop meddling with their inalienable mineral rights. Opposition also spread to other parts of the region in February 1949. The Shell DARSC Y exploratory party clashed with the local community in Orodo, which led to the summoning of the Omoahia police by the Owele district officer to provide protection for it. The act was strongly condemned by the West African pilot, which wrote that the district officer should have sided with the people and not with the joint venture.

Speaker 1: 1:09:39

Opposition to Shell DARCOI was not confined to communities, not with the joint venture. Opposition to Shell was not confined to communities in which the joint ventures was engaged in exploration work. The Mbama clan in the Okigwe District, for example, drew a petition against the joint venture in August of 1949, which stated that they did not want the joint venture to enter their land, nor explore it or drill for oil. The petition predated activities by Shell DAROCY in the Mbama clan territory. Azikiwe not only publicized local opposition to Sheldon Arasiwa in his papers but further raised the issue at the Legislative Council in April of 1949 when he asked the governor to explain the joint venture's activities and position in the Ikeduru area in the Owe district. Activities and position in the Ike Duru area in the Owe district.

Speaker 1: 1:10:37

The joint venture and the colonial government initially responded to this opposition in two ways. Firstly, they were quick to attribute much of the agitation to the nationalist movement in eastern Nigeria and to Azikiwe in particular. Azikiwe was accused of always being ready to take up the goggles in his newspaper on behalf of any cause, regardless of its merits, out of which he thinks political capital can be made. In this way, local protests became tainted by the association with Ezekiel in the eyes of the colonial authorities and Shell DA ROCY. Secondly, colonial government did not hesitate to use force, or the threat thereof, against communities and willingly sent pleas to protect the exploration parties in the Ikeduru and Orodo areas.

Speaker 1: 1:11:33

From the consulted sources it is clear that the colonial government and Shell DARCY decided to explore less confrontational methods in its handling of local opposition to oil exploration in the second half of 1949. In a widely publicized public statement issued on 4th August 1949, the colonial government expressed its concerns regarding what it termed as misunderstanding over the activities of Shell Company and clearly stated the terms under which the joint venture operated. Landowners were assured that the joint venture had no right to acquire any land and that compensation would be paid for all damages. The government also made it clear that they would continue its support for Shell DARC, given the enormous benefits to the future of Nigeria If the joint venture were to discover oil in commercial quantity and quality. Shell DRC also explained with this less confrontational approach when they informed the residents of Onitsha on 22 October 1949 of their intention to start exploration work in the area one week later. In a remarkable statement, the joint venture provided full details of exactly what their works would entail, for example declaring of a straight strip of land six feet wide and about two miles long, and the objectives of the work. The statement also assured the land owners that the joint venture would not be acquiring any land and that the owners should make all claims for damages to the district officer.

Speaker 1: 1:13:20

The actions by the colonial government and Shell DARCY seemingly satisfied nationalist leaders and local communities Since after October 1949, there is no mention of the consulted sources of any local opposition to the oil exploration in general and Shell DARCY in particular in their period. That falls within the scope of this article. Support from nationalist leaders for anti-Shell DAR-C-Y protests also greatly diminished in the second half of 1949 as these leaders finally came to realize the potential of oil in securing financial viability for a future independent Nigeria. This change in position was clearly expressed by the stance of the Executive Council in the disagreement between the Governor, sergeant Mark Farson, and the Shell DRCY. That dominated relations between August and November of 1949.

Speaker 1: 1:14:25

When the joint venture applied for a prospecting license in August of 1949 to embark on more extensive exploratory work, macfarlane saw this as a perfect opportunity to negotiate with a joint venture on a number of issues he considered crucial to the future development of Nigeria and to obtain popular support for oil development. In a number of meetings in Lagos and London between representatives from Shell DRC, the Colonial Office, the Ministry of Fuel and Power and the Nigerian Colonial Government, mark Frasen repeatedly made four demands, namely, I quote one the formation of a new local company for the special purpose of developing Nigerians oil resources to some, system whereby the Nigerian government would share in the profits earned by the company. Three government to have the right to support one director to the board of the company. For the Nigerian public to have the opportunity of subscribing a certain proportion of the share capital of the company. Macfarlane's proposals were very progressive for the time and were resisted by the joint venture on many grounds, but most importantly because it would constitute an undesirable precedent which would complicate the negotiations between oil companies and governments in other parts of the world. Protracted negotiations would not convince Shell DRC to change its position, and it insisted that there was no real justification to depart from the colonial model of oil mining regulations on which the Nigeria Mineral Oil Ordinance was based. Much to the annoyance and disappointment of the Governor, the other members of the Executive Council agreed with Shell DARCY and voted on 19 November 1949 to retain the existing legislative framework for the Joint ventures prospecting work, which made allowance only for the dense standard payment of rents, royalties and taxes once oil exploration and exportation commenced. The Council based their decision on the fact that it was of vital interest to Nigeria that the search for oil continue and that any discovery should be exploited without delay. The decision by the Executive Council elevated oil permanently to the level of the national interest, and as the investment and as the involvement of nationalist leaders in the governing of Nigeria grew in the course of the 1950s, local interests became even more subordinate when they clashed with national interests. In due course, the joint venture did agree to form a locally incorporated company which was called the Shell DAROCY Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited. The company was registered on 10 September 1951 in Lagos.

Speaker 1: 1:17:34

Shortly thereafter, shell DARCY also adopted a limited policy of Nigerianization. This policy was the first implemented by the colonial government in the civil service in 1948 to prepare the country for independence in the long term. The country for independence in the long term, though extremely important to and popular with nationalist leaders, the tempo of Nigerianization was too slow for most Nigerians and this issue became a regular point of conflict between the colonial government and the nationalist leaders. Though European enterprises were encouraged to adopt Nigerianization policies, there was no official governmental policy to guide this process in the private sector. Consequently, the Nigerianization of European companies intended to proceed at a snail's pace. Shell D-A-R-C-Y was no exception and by 1954, the company listed only three Nigerians as occupying senior level positions out of a total workforce of 2,088. The slow tempo of the company's Nigerianization seemed to have stemmed from a deliberate decision made by it to train only a few senior grade Nigerians for integration with their senior grade European staff. Very little is known of this process in Shell DRCY, since the consulted sources made almost no reference to it. The only other occasion when this issue came up was in March 1958, when the West African pilot published a front page article on the promotion of five more Nigerians to senior positions in the joint venture.

Speaker 1: 1:19:22

Shell DRCY's concessionary area expanded directly after the war when their application to explore for oil in Nigeria's territorial waters was approved in 1949. From 1952 onwards, however, their concessionary territory was gradually reduced. In January 1952, the joint venture reduced their oil exploration license to an area in southern Nigeria covering 56,000 square miles and stretching from the eastern border with Dahomey into the British Cameroons. This concession was reduced to 13,800 square miles on 19 January 1954. The reduction of Shell's DROC-wise concession territory resulted from their extensive exploratory work that enabled them to relinquish control over areas that they were confident held limited or no possibilities. Between 1951 and 1957, the company gradually applied for 20 oil prospecting licenses covering about 40,000 square miles. That enabled them to commence with more detailed geological and geophysical investigation, to drill and to start with test production. Their oil prospecting concessions were situated, inter alia, in the Olu Okigwe, oweri, bende divisions of the Oweri province, the Akwa, ogu, Onitsha and Nkusa divisions of the Onitsha province, the Igala division of the Kaba province, akata in the Kalaba province and the Asha and Asaba divisions of the Benin province. It conducted extensive gravity surveys in their concession between April of 1948 and May of 1953 and area photography surveys between 1951 and 1954. In 1951, the joint venture drilled its first deep exploration well at Iwo, near Oweri, which turned out to be a dry well. Between 1951 and 1956, he drilled 18 exploration, appraisal and development wells.

Speaker 1: 1:21:42

Oil and gas were discovered in Akata in the Kalaba province in 1953, but the oil resources were very limited at the source. In January of 1956, oil of commercial quantity and quality was finally discovered by shell d-a-r-o-c-y at oloibri yay we know that part very well situated 72 kilometers west of port hackard at a depth of 12 000 and 8 feet. This was allowed. This was followed by the discovery of oil at Afam shortly thereafter, 40 km east of Port Harket. By 1958, shell DARC had discovered oil in 12 areas, of which Oloibri, af depth to 131,000 feet.

Speaker 1: 1:22:33

In 1957, the Oloibri field was put into production. By then the company had begun with the development of the necessary infrastructure to transport the crude from its source to the company's terminal in Port Harkard. To this end, 6 inches and 10 inches diameter widened steel oil pipes. Pipelines were laid from the Umalogo village, ahoda division, igbema village, degema division and Obiakub village, aba division to Port Harcourt. Oil production started at Oloibiri in early 1958 at 3,000 barrels per day, while the AFAM field was also put into production in the same year the first shipment of Nigerian crude oil exports 8,500 tons of crude oil arrived at Rotterdam on 8 March 1958. Bringing that first shipment to Rotterdam represented an investment of £27 million between 1936 and 1958 for Shell DARC An investment worth it, you will say. The first shipment of Nigerian crude oil pushed out in a new era in the Nigerian oil industry. Nigerian crude oil pushed in a new era in the Nigerian oil industry which would over time see this industry develop into dominant sector of the Nigerian economy.

Speaker 1: 1:24:02

The successes of Shell DERCY also attracted the attention of other multinational oil companies From even before the discovery of oil at Oloibri. The process of opening up the Nigerian oil industry to other companies was well underway. This process started in 1955 when the first non-shell DA ROCY oil exploration license was granted to the Mobile Exploration Company of Nigeria, a locally incorporated subsidiary of the Sokoni Mobile Oil Company. Mobile's concessions covered most of northern Nigeria and the company very soon discovered why Shell DARCY had to relinquish their concession in this territory. By 1957, mobile had relinquished most of the northern Nigerian concessions apart from three small areas and had applied for an exploration license covering about 4,000 square miles in the western region stretching from the border with Dahomey along the coast of the east of Lagos.

Speaker 1: 1:25:09

The discovery of commercially viable oil deposits in Nigeria also coincided with the 1956 Suez Crisis. Yes, the Suez Canal For those of you who know the different gateways of the world, suez Canal is one of them, yes, which ensued multinational oil companies' interest in Nigeria because this country was situated on what was perceived to be the right side of the Suez Canal. Yes, history is a good teacher. The commencement of crude oil exports in 1958 ensured the interest of other multinational oil companies, such as Gulf Oil, tennessee Gas Transmission, the Italian firm ENI, and this one is so big I'll just give you the acronym SAFRAP is so big, it's a French. That's what metamorphose into Total SAFRAP, who all obtained oil exploration concession between 1960 and 1962. Then we come to the conclusion.

Speaker 1: 1:26:17

The history of oil exploration in Nigeria clearly illustrates the fact that the discovery of commercially viable oil resources was a long, drawn-out process. Much to the disappointment of early oil ventures, the Nigerian environment proved to be their most challenging obstacle, which required greater technology than the petroleum industry possessed at the time. Consequently, the early exploration work was plagued by failure. Nigeria, like many other tropical zones, greatly benefited from the professionalization I beg your pardon of the petroleum industry from the 1920s onwards, which would in future prove Sorry I'm going to take that again, sorry, sorry. Nigeria, like many other tropical zones, greatly benefited from the professionalization of the petroleum industry from the 1920s onwards, which would in future provide oil companies with the necessary trained scientists and equipment to conduct successful exploratory work in the challenging environment. Successful exploratory work in the challenging environment.

Speaker 1: 1:27:37

In addition to the challenging environment, the British government did very little to promote oil exploration in colonial Nigeria. Negotiations for oil concessions were often protracted and no special incentives were offered to oil companies to retain their interest in Nigeria when initial investments were exhausted. As a consequence, the exploration for oil in colonial Nigeria became the domain of the large integrated oil companies represented by Royal Dutch Shell and the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, who had the financial resources to fund the extensive and expensive search for oil in the colony and the technological expertise and equipment to achieve such success over the long term. Even after the industry started to open up to other competitors from 1955 onwards, it was only large oil companies who became involved in Nigerian oil. These dominants did not diminish after the Nigerian government obtained a majority share in all the oil companies active in the country in the 1970s, and this state of affairs ensured that Nigerian investors had limited opportunities to directly participate in their country's largest industries up until the 1990s, when the government deliberately opened the industry up to smaller Nigerian oil companies.

Speaker 1: 1:29:18

In part, this process of foreign domination and lack of local participation ensured that the oil industry retained its enclave character within the Nigerian economy during the independent era. It also ensured the alienation of local oil producing communities from these important resources, who were given limited opportunities to participate in the industry beyond their main role as semi-skilled and unskilled labour. The process of alienation was further enhanced by the government's support for the oil industry in their often conflicting relations with local communities. This trend was firmly established in the 1940s when the colonial government gave their full support to Shell DARCY in their dealings with the local communities and was further enhanced by the 1949 decision by the Executive Council to allow the company to continue work along lines dictated by the company, because oil was of national interest in Nigeria. Oil would remain in national interest in the country, to the detriment of local problems and concerns, until local oil producing communities forced the oil industry, the Nigerian government and the world in the 1990s to take note of their grievances against oil production in their local environment.

Speaker 1: 1:30:52

And that's not the end of the reading. Actually, that's the beginning of your thinking process. Now, you see, history has a way of showing us, and someone said once to me the future has hidden secrets in history. So if you go back in time, so to say, you unearth certain hidden treasures. So, for Nigeria, recently there's been this I would call it cycle where most of the oil majors are divesting from, they're divesting their interest from the shallow, what we call the shallow waters. You know, the swampy areas, and more or less like opening up to indigenous firms to come and be part of it. They are now, you know, going into deep waters based on their technological advancement and all of that.

Speaker 1: 1:31:51

It is an opportunity for us as a people to see that we can actually learn from this and actually, would I say, create our future. Take hold of this. Well, I thought to come and do this with you is not long, you know, sitting down, reading, and all of that. The idea is to you is to create that thing in you like a catalyst, like a spark that you will rise up as a Nigerian and know that you have a great future. Your past, yes, but the future is in your hands.

Speaker 1: 1:32:32

All right, guys, it's always fun coming into this space. You guys know that, and I'm always excited knowing that you're there listening to me. Yes, we've done a lot in this space. You will agree with me. We've done a lot, but it is not beyond the power of words. I got to go now. You know how we say it on the show. This is where we come into lean on one another's world experience to forge a positive path. Alright, then I got to go now. Can I come here again? Bye for now.

Speaker 1: 1:33:08

Awesome time it has been with you on the World Cafe Podcast today. Thank you for being there. You can catch me up on my social media handles Twitter, facebook, linkedin and Instagram, all at Amakri Isoboye. Also, you can get copies of my books A Cocktail of Words, the Color of Words by H Aaron Notebook and Hocus Pocus on God on Amazon and Roving Heights online bookstores. You can also subscribe to my YouTube channel at the same address at Amakri Issawe. I love to hear from you and how this podcast has impacted you. You can leave me a message at my email address amakrigaribaldi at gmailcom. Email address at macrigaribaldi at gmailcom. That is A-M-A-C-H-R-E-E-E-G-A-R-I-B-A-L-D-I. Yes till I come your way again. Bye for now.