There should be a faster tempo of upstream activity on the continent in 2019, if crude oil price stops heading downhill.
We expect increased drilling (exploratory and infill), increased seismic coverage (exclusive and multi-client) and a significant upturn in field optimisation.
The big new projects may not all start to happen as we have anticipated, but the creep that attended 2018 should turn to a mild rush.
If there is one thing that 2018 taught us, here in the newsrooms of the 17 year old Africa Oil-Gas Report, it is that the price of crude oil doesn’t have the be-all and end-all effect on final investment decisions of major hydrocarbon projects in Africa.
This time last year, we wrote that a $60-65 per barrel regime was good enough for a number of large projects, held up since the price crash of 2014, to reach financial close. The prices held firm, even did better than anticipated, yet the projects didn’t happen. Governments and other circumstances, more than anything else, cramp the syle.
Government’s interest and preparedness affected the pace of two large projects in Nigeria; a large deepwater oil project as well 
as the largest LNG project on the continent.
That said, let us turn the pages of the December 2018 edition of Africa Oil+Gas Report and look at a number of intended projects and activity. Our theme is Who is doing what and where in 2019: and it compiles short summaries of bid rounds, exploratory activity, field development work, and financial sanctions, all over, from Algeria to Zambia.
The Africa Oil+Gas Report is the primer of the hydrocarbon industry on the continent. It is the market leader in local contextualizing of global developments and policy issues and is the go-to medium for decision makers, whether they be international corporations or local entrepreneurs, technical enterprises or financing institutions. Published by the Festac News Press Limited since November 2001, AOGR is a paid subscription based monthly, hardcopy and pdf publication delivered around the world. Its website remains www.africaoilgasreport.com and the contact email address is info@africaoilgasreport.com. Contact telephone numbers in our West African regional headquarters in Lagos are +2347062420127, +234803652979, +2348023902519.
See you on 2019.
-Editor
