Untapped The Scramble For Africa's Oil

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overwhelming majority of this current drilling movement has taken place in the so-called "deep water" and the "ultradeep" of the Gulf of Guinea , the roughly 90-degree bend according the west seashore of Africa that can best be visualized as the continent's "armpit." Its littoral area passes through the territorial waters of a dozen countries, from Ivory Coast in the northwest down to Angola in the south, and a good handle of its geology shares the specifics that have made Nigeria a prolific maker for decades. Indeed, a number of unexpectedly pregnant fields have been discovered in the Gulf over the elapse decade. But although the Gulf of Guinea has lately been sub-Saharan Africa 's most exciting region for the oil industry, it is hardly the merely "prospective" portion of the continent (to borrow the manufacture term). The parched semideserts of southern Chad and southern Sudan have recently added hundreds of thousands of barrels a daytime to global markets, and a growing chorus of voices is immediately touting the East African margin as the industry's "next huge thing."
But be it east alternatively west, jungle or abandon, it namely a secure bet that where the drillers go, the politicians, strategists, and lobbyists are not far after. Washington in particular has taken a acute interest in Africa 's growing significance as one oil-producing district since the headline discoveries of the late 1990s. In December 2000 the National Intelligence Council,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], an inner CIA think tank, promulgated a report in which it declared unambiguously that sub-Saharan Africa "will melodrama an increasing role in universal vigor markets," and prophesied that the region would invest 25 percent of North American oil imports along 2015, up from the 15 percentage hardly ever at the period. (This would put Africa well onward of Saudi Arabia as a source of oil for the United States .) In May 2001 a polemical and fairly secretive energy mission compel put attach along U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney alleged in its report: " West Africa is expected to be one of the fastest-growing sources of oil and gas for the American mall."
In the following months, a team of congressmen, lobbyists, and defense strategists came together below the umbrella of the African Oil Policy Initiative Group,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], and began sermonizing the information that the Gulf of Guinea was the new Persian Gulf, and that it should chance a strategic prerogative for the United States, even to the point of requiring an inflated naval presence. A series of well-placed treatises in the American media followed, some breathlessly announcing the inauguration of a new Middle East off the shores of Africa . Before long,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], the influential Center for Strategic and International Studies had chimed in with a pair of reports, its most recent, in July 2005, claiming that "an exceptional mingle of U.S. interests is at play in West Africa's Gulf of Guinea ."
During these years, a digit of prominent lawmakers in Washington began obtaining incited almost the likelihood of shifting some of America 's fuel reliance from the Middle East apt Africa . One sometime senior official charged with black affairs recollections Kansas Senator Sam Brownback rushing up to him 1 afternoon in October 2002, positively flickering with excitement. "What do you meditation almost bases in Africa ?" Brownback queried. "Wouldn't namely be excellent?"
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But does Africa amount up to the hype? After entire, the entire continent is believed to involve, at best, 10 percent of the world's proven oil keeps, making it a minnow swimming in an ocean of seasoned sharks. Africa is unlikely ever to "replace" the Middle East or anybody additional major oil-producing region. So why the song and dancing? Why all the goose bumps? Why do so numerous influential folk in Washington let themselves get so carried away when they talk about African oil?
The question has quite mini to do with geology. Africa 's significance as an oil "play," to borrow the industry lingo, lies further the number of barrels