The bright continent

13 August 2012 By Kevin Allison, Christopher Swann

Despite some tough regimes and far smaller reserves, Africa is set to overtake Latin America’s crude output this year. The unlikely reversal reflects investor-friendly approaches in the likes of Angola. It’s also the clearest sign yet of how misguided the Latin region’s course is.

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Africa boosted oil production by 800,000 barrels a day in the decade to 2011 to 8.8 million, against a 100,000 barrel increase in Latin America, including Mexico, to 10.3 million, according to figures from BP.

This includes a sharp fall in Libyan production in 2011, which cut off almost 1.2 million barrels a day of supply. In April, the nation’s production had recovered to around 1.5 million barrels a day - compared to 1.6 million prior to its conflict.

Comparing production in the decade to 2010, before Libya halted supply, Africa boosted oil output by 2.3 million barrels a day, to 10.1 million, an increase of 30 percent. Over the same period Latin American nations held production at around 10.3 million barrels a day.

Latin America has about 336 billion barrels of proven reserves, or about a fifth of the world’s total. Africa’s reserves are about 132 billion barrels, or 8 percent of the global tally.

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