In 1956 oil was found in commercial quantity at Oloibiri in the Niger Delta.
- Date
- 1956
- Status
- Historical
- Location
- Oloibiri, Niger Delta
- Period
- Colonial Nigeria (1861–1960)
In 1956 oil was found in commercial quantity at Oloibiri in the Niger Delta. According to the Library of Congress country study, the search for oil had begun in 1908 and been abandoned a few years later; it was revived in 1937 by Shell and British Petroleum and intensified in 1946. Exports began in 1958 from facilities built at Port Harcourt.
Oil exploration in Nigeria had a long and uncertain history before the find at Oloibiri. According to the Library of Congress country study, the search for oil began in 1908 and was abandoned a few years later; it was revived in 1937 by Shell and British Petroleum and intensified after 1946. Wikipedia's history of Nigeria dates the discovery of the Oloibiri oilfield, the first in the country, to January 1956, in the south-south of present-day Nigeria.
By the late 1960s oil had replaced cocoa, groundnuts and palm produce as Nigeria's largest earner of foreign exchange. In 1971 Nigeria, by then the world's seventh-largest producer, joined the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and the rise in world oil prices in 1974 brought a sudden flood of revenue (country study).
The discovery came just before independence and changed the basis of the Nigerian economy. Oil was first exported in 1958 from facilities built at Port Harcourt. By the late 1960s it had replaced cocoa, groundnuts and palm produce as the main earner of foreign exchange, and after the price rises of 1974 it dominated Nigeria's exports. The country study notes that oil revenue paid for much of the industrial growth and spending of the 1970s, but that the boom's end in 1981 put severe strain on the Second Republic. Control of oil revenue, and the conditions of the oil-producing Niger Delta, have remained central issues of Nigerian politics (country study; Wikipedia).
- Nigeria: A Country Study — Emergence of Nigerian Nationalism — Federal Research Division, Library of Congress · link
- Nigeria: A Country Study — The Gowon Regime — Federal Research Division, Library of Congress · link
- Nigeria: A Country Study — The Obasanjo Regime — Federal Research Division, Library of Congress · link
- Nigeria: A Country Study — The Second Republic, 1979-83 — Federal Research Division, Library of Congress · link
- History of Nigeria — Wikipedia · link
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Archive ID: EVT-OIL-DISCOVERED-AT-OLOIBIRI · Last updated 3 October 2026.
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