Africa shows how hard it's becoming to pump crude oil: Report

Crude production in western Africa has fallen by one-third since 2010 and is expected to drop again this year

The world’s infrastructure to pump crude out of the ground is creaking, and nowhere is that more apparent than off the west coast of Africa. Years of under-investment, theft, sabotage and civil strife have combined with harsh operating conditions to undermine the region’s oil production, sending it into a slump from which it may never recover.

In 2010, west African countries were pumping close to 5.5 million barrels a day of crude and condensate, about 7 per cent of global production. By 2021, that had fallen to little more than 3.5 million barrels a day, and the region’s share of the