Exploratory activity in central and southern Africa continued to grow during 1981. Geophysical operations reached nearly record levels and the number of wells increased markedly. Oil production suffered from the adverse conditions that existed throughout the world and dropped by a significant amount. New concession acquisitions occurred in several of the countries in northeast Africa. Elsewhere, the operating companies negotiated new concessions and renewed those that were expiring. In several countries where production has been proven, the operators were assigned exploitation concessions.

Seismic crews and marine geophysical vessels were active throughout the countries in this area. A total of 365 party-months of work was done to yield 98,035 km of new lines. A moderate amount of 3-D recording was carried out in connection with field development. Some aeromagnetic work was done, principally in northeast Africa and in Mozambique. Forty-four new fields or pools were discovered by drilling 115 new-field wildcat and exploratory wells. These wells accounted for 1,060,254 ft (323,248 m) of hole. Appraisal and development drilling resulted in 321 wells with a total of 2,533,305 ft (772,349 m) of hole drilled. At year end, 25 exploratory wells were under way or testing, and 49 rigs were active in development drilling. Oil production for the year was 691,995,939 bbl, a decrease of nearly 25% from 1980. Nigeria suffered the greatest drop in production; however, increases were achieved in Cameroon, Congo, and Zaire. The cumulative production from this part of Africa passed the 10 billion bbl mark.