The Scramble for Africa's Oil

Bill Quigley

20 Jun 2007

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The
Scramble for Africa's Oil

by Christopher Thompson

"Within a decade, the US will be heavily dependent on
African oil. Little wonder the Pentagon is preparing a strategy for the
region."

This article originally appeared in The New Statesman (UK). OilAfricanFire

The Pentagon is to reorganize its military
command structure in response to growing fears that the United States is
seriously ill-equipped to fight the war against terrorism in Africa. It is a
dramatic move, and an admission that the US must reshape its whole military
policy if it is to maintain control of Africa for the duration of what Donald
Rumsfeld has called "the long war." Suddenly the world's most
neglected continent is assuming an increasing global importance as the
international oil industry begins to exploit more and more of the west coast of
Africa's abundant reserves.

The Pentagon at present has five geographic
Unified Combatant Commands around the world, and responsibility for Africa is
awkwardly divided among three of these. Most of Africa - a batch of 43
countries - falls under the European Command (Eucom), with the remainder
divided between the Pacific Command and Central Command (which also runs the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan). Now the Pentagon - under the Joint Chiefs of
Staff and the defense department - is working on formal proposals for a unified
military command for the continent under the name "Africom." This
significant shift in US relations with Africa comes in the face of myriad
threats: fierce economic competition from Asia; increasing resource nationalism
in Russia and South America; and instability in the Middle East that threatens
to spill over into Africa.

"The US must
reshape its whole military policy if it is to maintain control of Africa."

The Pentagon hopes to finalize Africom's
structure, location and budget this year. The expectation is that it can break
free from Eucom and become operative by mid-2008.

"The break from Europe will occur before
30 September 2008," Professor Peter Pham, a US adviser on Africa to the
Pentagon told the New Statesman. "The independent command should
be up and running by this time next year."

OilKillsOgomo A Pentagon source says the new command, which
was originally given the green light by the controversial former US defense
secretary Donald Rumsfeld, is likely to be led by William "Kip" Ward,
the US army's only four-star African-American general. In 2005, Ward was
appointed the US security envoy to the Middle East and he is reportedly close
to President George W. Bush. He also has boots-on-the-ground experience in
Africa: he was a commander during Bill Clinton's ill-fated mission in Somalia
in 1993 and he served as a military representative in Egypt in 1998. Ward is
now the deputy head of Eucom.

America's new Africa strategy reflects its key
priorities in the Middle East: oil and counter-terrorism. Currently, the US has
in place the loosely defined Trans-Sahara
Counter-Terrorism Initiative, incorporating an offshoot of Operation
Enduring Freedom that is intended to keep terrorist networks out of the vast,
unguarded Sahel. But the lack of a coherent and unified policy on Africa is,
according to some observers, hampering America's efforts in the Middle East. US
military sources estimate that up to a quarter of all foreign fighters in Iraq
are from Africa, mostly from Algeria and Morocco.

Moreover, there is increasing alarm within the
US defense establishment at the creeping "radicalization" of Africa's
Muslims, helped along by the export of hardline, Wahhabi-style clerics from the
Arabian peninsula.

"The terrorist challenge [has] increased
in Africa in the past year - it's gotten a new lease on life," according
to Pham.

But it is the west's increasing dependency on
African oil that gives particular urgency to these new directions in the fight
against terrorism. Africa's enormous, and largely untapped, reserves are
already more important to the west than most Americans recognize.

In March 2006, speaking before the Senate armed services
committee, General James Jones, the then head of Eucom, said: "Africa
currently provides over 15 per cent of US oil imports, and recent explorations
in the Gulf of Guinea region indicate potential reserves that could account for
25-35 per cent of US imports within the next decade."

"Africa's enormous,
and largely untapped, reserves are already more important to the west than most
Americans recognize."

These high-quality reserves - West African oil
is typically low in sulphur and thus ideal for refining - are easily accessible
by sea to western Europe and the US. In 2005, the US imported more oil from the
Gulf of Guinea than it did from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait combined. Within the
next ten years it will import more oil from Africa than from the entire Middle
East. Western oil giants such as ExxonMobil, Chevron, France's Total and
Britain's BP and Shell plan to invest tens of billions of dollars in
sub-Saharan Africa (far in excess of "aid" inflows to the region).

But though the Gulf of Guinea is one of the
few parts of the world where oil production is poised to increase exponentially
in the near future, it is also one of the most unstable. In the big three
producer countries, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea and Angola, oil wealth has been
a curse for many, enriching political elites at the expense of impoverished
citizens. Angola is now China's main supplier of crude oil, supplanting Saudi
Arabia last year. The Chinese, along with the rest of oil- hungry Asia, are
looking covetously at the entire region's reserves.

Realpolitik of What Suits

Looming over West Africa is the spectre of the
southern Niger Delta area, which accounts for most of Nigeria's 2.4 million
barrels a day. Conflict here offers a taste of what could afflict all of
sub-Saharan Africa's oilfields. Since 2003, the Delta has become a virtual war
zone as heavily armed rival gangs - with names such as the Black Axes and
Vikings - battle for access to pipelines and demand a bigger cut of the
petrodollar. OilSoldierKids

Oil theft, known as "bunkering,"
costs Nigeria some $4bn (£2.05bn) a year, while foreign companies have been
forced to scale back production after kidnappings by Delta militants. Such
uncertainties help send world oil prices sky-high.

The Pentagon's new Africa policy is to include
a "substantial" humanitarian component, aimed partly at minimizing
unrest and crime. But the reality is that a bullish China is willing to offer
billions in soft loans and infrastructure projects - all with no strings
attached - to secure lucrative acreage.

"The U.S. plans to
beef up the military capacity of African governments to handle their
dissidents."

"It's like going back to a Cold War era
of politics where the US backs one political faction because their political
profile suits their requirements," says Patrick Smith, editor of the
newsletter Africa Confidential, widely read in policy circles.
"It's a move away from criteria of good governance to what is
diplomatically convenient."

According to Nicholas Shaxson, author of Poisoned
Wells: the Dirty Politics of African Oil, "[Africom] comes in the
context of a growing conflict with China over our oil supplies."

OilRiverboats Africom will significantly increase the US
military presence on the continent. At present, the US has 1,500 troops
stationed in Africa, principally at its military base in Djibouti, in the
eastern horn. That could well double, according to Pham. The US is already
conducting naval exercises off the Gulf of Guinea, in part with the intention
of stopping Delta insurgents reaching offshore oil rigs. It also plans to beef
up the military capacity of African governments to handle their dissidents,
with additional "rapid-reaction" US forces available if needed. But -
echoing charges leveled at US allies elsewhere in the "war on terror"
- there are fears that the many authoritarian governments in sub-Saharan Africa
might use such units to crack down on internal dissent.

Raising Hackles

The increased US military presence is already
apparent across the Red Sea from Iraq, where, in concert with Ethiopia,
Washington has quietly opened up another front in its war on terror. The
target: the Somalia-based Islamists whom the Americans claim were responsible
for the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Earlier this year,
US special forces used air strikes against suspected al-Qaeda militants,
killing scores.

"Hundreds of terror
suspects have been held incommunicado since Ethiopia's invasion of Somalia in
December last year."

FBI interrogators have also been dispatched to
Ethiopian jails, where hundreds of terror suspects - including Britons - have
been held incommunicado since Ethiopia's invasion of Somalia in December last
year, according to Human Rights Watch. The problem with this more
confrontational approach in Africa is apparent. "There's definitely a
danger of the US [being] seen as an imperial exploiter," says Shaxson.
"The military presence will raise hackles in certain countries - America
will have to tread lightly."

Nonetheless, the Pentagon is hoping that
Africom will signal a more constructive foreign policy in the region and a
break with the past. "Politically [Africa] is important and that's going
to increase in coming years," says Pham. "It's whether the US can
sustain the initiative."

African Oil: the Numbers

22%
of US crude oil imports came from Nigeria in the first quarter of 2007

25%
of US crude imports came from Saudi Arabia in the same period

75%
of the Nigerian government's income is oil-related

800,000
Nigerian estimate for barrels of oil lost each day through leaks, stoppages or
theft by rebels

$2.3bn
cost of building Chevron's Benguela Belize platform off the coast of Angola

Research by Jonathan
Pearson

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