The oil and gas industry in West Africa offers exciting investment opportunities to the industry globally

Nigeria is the largest oil producer in Africa and the 11th largest in the world, and the Jubilee field off Ghana in 2007 was the largest find of the entire decade.

The security situation in parts of West Africa remains precarious however, with the seemingly intractable Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East, presidential elections and continued huge levels of oil theft holding back further development in Nigeria and some other West African oil producing states.

Maritime Security

Companies active in the region have dedicated huge resources and efforts to working through community and employee relation problems in order to impede endemic theft and illegal siphoning. Despite these efforts, oil theft in Nigeria is at its highest levels in five years. In the last decade since the Government strategy of giving amnesty to former rebels in the Niger Delta, regrettably the security situation in the region has vastly deteriorated. Heavily armed and well-organised gangs steal large volumes of crude oil worth millions of pounds a year and attack oil and gas facilities, shutting down operations, kidnapping and occasionally killing staff. These gangs frequently sabotaging equipment, including pipelines and rival gangs have clashed violently in several of the Niger delta towns.

Maritime Security is also a big concern in this region; the resurgence of pirate attacks in African waters is now a subject of serious concern to African states and the international community. In October 2014, pirates launched a spate of attacks in the creeks of Nigeria’s oil-producing Niger Delta region, killing at least three policemen and abducting around ten. This is the latest in an escalating maritime crime scenario.

While many services and technologies are on offer for oil companies to enhance their security, the high cost of these can prevent them being implemented.

Latest Methods and Services for Security

This Summit will provide attendees with the ideal setting to hear about all the latest methods, strategies, technologies and services a company can deploy when protecting the team and infrastructure, and allow the security team to balance the cost of services with their real security needs.