Africa Oil Inceasingly Fuels Asian Economies

Africa’s oil industry is set to increasingly fuel Asia’s booming economies but infrastructure investment is needed to make the sector more globally competitive, an executive of a Nigerian oil company has said, the Gulf Times reported.

“There has been a boom in the oil trade between Africa and Asia over the recent years,” said Reg Stanley, newly-appointed managing director of Pipelines and Products Marketing Company Ltd, a division of Nigerian National Petroleum Corp.

He said China, followed by India, is driving that oil trade but South Korea, Malaysia and — further afield — even Brazil, are following.

“The global call for African oil is steadily on the increase,” he said in comments read by an industry colleague.

China now imports 28% of its oil from Africa, largely from Sudan, Angola, Congo and Nigeria, Stanley said.