January 8, 2003
The United States used to attach little importance to Africa, but now it is reviewing its oil sources strategy and sub-Saharan Africa, with its good quality reserves, could account for 25% of all US crude oil imports by 2015.
The Gulf of Guinea, with estimated reserves of 24bn barrels, is likely to become the world's leading deep water offshore production centre. Except for the Sudanese oilfields, Africa's reserves are just opposite the east coast of the US. The Chad-Cameroon pipeline will carry a further 250,000 barrels a day to the Atlantic. US oil companies - the two giants Exxon-Mobil and Chevron-Texaco, and operators such as Amerada Hess, Marathon and Ocean Energy - will invest more than $10bn in African oil this year.
The area became a geopolitical priority before 11 September 2001. At a meeting in 2000 on Africa's energy potential, oil companies told the Congress sub-committee on Africa just that. The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies (IASPS), a think-tank set up in Jerusalem in 1984, played an important part in the meeting. IASPS has close links with the Likud party, a longstanding advocate of reducing dependence on Saudi oil, and US neo-conservative forces.
Victory for the Texan oil lobby
Bush's electoral success was also a victory for the Texan oil lobby. In the aftermath of the September attacks IASPS' ideas gained ground with the administration's energy advisers and with White House falcons. In January 2002 IASPS organised a symposium attended by Kansteiner and members of the Bush administration (including Barry Schutz, a specialist on Africa, and Lt-Col Karen Kwiatkowksi, an airforce officer seconded to the defence secretary). The symposium was also attended by members of Congress, following the lead of William Jefferson, representative for Louisiana, by international consultants, and senior executives from oil firms and investment funds. The meeting marked the start of the African oil policy initiative group (AOPset up to interface between private and public sectors. It produced a paper "African oil, a priority for US national security and African development ". The oil industry's message to the administration was clear - you lead, we'll follow.
Since the symposium US energy policy has shown signs of being influenced by this lobby. The national policy made public in May by the vice-president, Richard Cheney, was eloquent: "African oil tends to be of high quality and low in sulphur giving it a growing market share for refining centres on the east coast of the US". AOPIG has also intervened in Nigeria, the north of which suffers political and social unrest, dispatching oil evangelist Michael Wihbey to Lagos in July. Officially the aim was to set up a Gulf of Guinea commission representing oil producing countries in the area. Unofficially there was talk of Nigeria leaving Opec, a rumour finally denied by the government.
The AOPIG paper recommends that the US should "not repeat the mistakes of the Persian Gulf". It should attach greater importance to transparency in the declaration of oil revenues and extend customs facilities already available to African countries. It should make a cautious commitment on debt cancellation. Much would have to change for US policy to adopt good intentions. Oil and good governance are currently a contradiction. In a document published in July, the association of episcopal conferences of the Central African region stressed that: "Complicity has come into play between our political power holders and oil companies. Revenue drawn from oil exploitation strengthens state authority, which is used to the detriment of the population".
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Lt-Col Karen Kwiatkowksi, now where have I heard that name before?