Oil and gas in the Delta

Before oil

For centuries the Delta's wealth came from its rivers: fish, salt and, in the 19th century, palm oil, carried by Itsekiri, Ijaw and Urhobo traders to European ships at the coast.

The first finds

Nigeria's first commercial oil discovery was made at Oloibiri, in what is now Bayelsa State, in 1956. Fields across what is now Delta State followed, around Ughelli, in the Isoko area and at Escravos.

The Warri Refinery

The Warri Refinery at Ekpan was completed in December 1977 and commissioned in 1978, the first refinery wholly owned by the Nigerian government. It was built to refine crude from Escravos and Ughelli, at 100,000 barrels a day, raised to 125,000 in 1987, and a petrochemical plant making polypropylene and carbon black was added in 1988.

Wealth, and its costs

Oil brought money, jobs and a skilled workforce, trained at the Petroleum Training Institute and the Federal University of Petroleum Resources in Effurun. It also brought pollution, gas flaring and conflict to the creeks, and communities have long argued that too little of the wealth came back to them. In December 1998, Ijaw youth leaders issued the Kaiama Declaration setting out their grievances over oil and the environment.

Gas and what comes next

Gas is now at the centre of the state's plans: a major gas-fired power station outside Ughelli, a free trade zone at Kwale built around the OB3 gas pipeline, and the long-planned Gas Revolution Industrial Park at Ogidigben.

The history of oil in the Delta is contested, and communities, companies and governments tell it differently. We report what the sources below document.

Read next

• Energy and infrastructure: invest in Delta
• The Ijaw
• The Isoko