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How much of Nigeria’s oil assets are held by individuals?

According to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec), Nigeria has 36.9 billion barrels of crude oil reserves. These are held in oil blocks owned by both companies and individuals.

Exploration and crude export activities in these oil blocks sometimes use a joint venture, an agreement between two or more parties to contribute assets, execute a project and share profits or losses.

According to the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, 61 oil prospecting leases and 113 oil mining leases had been allocated as of December 2018. Another 214 were open.

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