Exploratory activity in central and southern Africa continued to be strong during 1982. Seismic operations decreased, but there was a marked increase in the amount of aeromagnetic control obtained. Oil production continued the drop which began in 1981 due to the world oversupply.

There were few new concessions taken by the international oil companies. Several small projects required the acquisition of relatively small amounts of land. A notable exception was in Gabon where Tenneco and Amoco have gained strong land positions. The east African countries are preparing for increased land acquisition.

Seismic activity declined from 365 party-months in 1981 to 296 party-months in 1982. The amount of control obtained, however, increased substantially to 127,518 km. The acquisition of 3-D control increased by about 50% during the year as this technique was being used more commonly to delineate structures prior to development drilling.

Forty-eight new-field wildcats resulted in discoveries, compared with 44 the previous year. There were 281 development wells. In all, 464 wells were drilled to account for 3.6 million ft of hole.

Oil production was 662,871,768 bbl, a decrease of 5.8% from 1981. Cumulative production has now exceeded 11 billion bbl.