Here, in a lengthy article from German newsweekly Der Spielgel's online site, is a blow-by-blow account of the raging battle being fought continent-wide for Africa's oil:
GoG News: Spiegel Online English, Germany,
Wed, 07 Dec 2005
THE RACE FOR RESOURCES
Gangsters and Africa's Black Gold Rush
By Thilo Thielke
The Americans and the Chinese are vying for control of
Africa's huge oil reserves. China's growing industrial
base is also foraging for copper, manganese and
tropical hardwood to feed its voracious appetite.
Africa's dictators are the real winners.
Dokubo-Asari, who has given himself the terrifying
first name of Mujahid, had no way of anticipating his
imminent arrest. The beefy rebel leader plunged thick
fingers into his bowl, fished out a fatty piece of
chicken from the sauce, and shoved it into his mouth,
dripping a red trail on his white caftan in the
process. Smacking his lips, he launched into tales of
his exploits.
The Niger Delta could not be compared with Bosnia, at
least not yet, he expounded with a touch of pride.
After all, he could already mobilize more than 100,000
troops. If the government continued to betray him, he
would unleash this force, targeting the governor's
bandits, the oil companies - and all foreigners.
Of the approximately 130 gangs, which go by names such
as "The Vikings," "The Icelanders," the "National
Alliance of Adventurers" and "Black Ax," the 41-
year-old Dokubo-Asari may well command the toughest of
the bunch: a band of warriors from the Ijaw tribe that
has its home in the delta. His militia is suspected of
regularly tapping Shell's pipelines, kidnapping or
killing its workers, and staging shootouts with rivals
on the streets. The BBC estimates that Dokubo-Asari
has some 2,000 desperados under his control. He has
christened his guerilla fighters with the ostentatious
title "Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force."
The havoc these renegades can wreak is all too
familiar to Royal Dutch Shell, which pumps one million
barrels of oil a day in Nigeria. According to its
annual report, an average of 50,000 barrels a day were
stolen in 2004, at a loss of almost $1 billion. In the
same period, a dozen workers were killed, between 50
and 70 kidnapped, and a total of 314 criminal
incidents recorded. Pumping had to be halted 176
times. A complete tanker, the African Pride, even
disappeared, ne'er to be seen again!
African oil in high demand
"The oil theft is bleeding us white," company
spokesman Larry Ossai complains in Nigeria's capital,
Abuja. For the security company WAC Global Services,
conditions in the Niger Delta may even recall
Chechnya.
Several months ago, Nigerian officials decided enough
was enough. Dokubo-Asari was taken into custody on
charges of planning a coup. Since then the conflict
has been threatening to careen out of control. One
hundred heavily armed Dokubo supporters seized an oil
rig operated by Chevron. As a precaution, the American
oil company shut down a second platform.
Shell too has pulled out workers - although no other
place in the world is currently discovering oil
reserves as fast as Africa's terra incognita. Already,
some 8 million barrels are being pumped every day.
High-quality crude, light and low in sulfur. Easily
processed into gasoline, African oil is in high
demand.
In the past three decades alone, fossil fuel has
allegedly brought more than $280 billion dollars into
Nigeria. Most of this has disappeared into the pockets
of corrupt politicians. The Economist has referred to
a recently concluded debt relief program for the
resource-rich country as "laughable." There is every
indication that the cash will keep flowing. The oil
industry predators have been circling the chaotic
countries located on the Gulf of Guinea in increasing
numbers - not just as a result of the stratospheric
rise in oil prices and dwindling reserves in the other
Gulf.
Up to 100 billion barrels are thought to be hidden,
primarily off the West African coast - roughly the
equivalent of Iraq's reserves. U.S. congressman
William Jefferson announced happily in 2004: "Last
year, 8 billion barrels of oil were discovered around
the world, and seven billion of them were off the West
African coast." The treasure trove is there for the
taking.
Dizzying growth rates
The United States has a particular interest in these
reserves: Nigeria is its fifth largest supplier of
crude, with central and western Africa making up 15
percent of its oil imports. That figure will soon hit
20 percent.
Dizzying growth rates are projected for countries like
Nigeria and Angola, where corruption is endemic. In
the not-too-distant future, they could even double
their output. The inflow of cash is expected to reach
tidal proportions across the Gulf of Guinea: in Gabon,
Congo-Brazzaville, Equatorial Guinea, São Tomé and
Prín- cipe. The oilfields extend hundreds of miles
inland.
Massive pipelines are already channeling crude from
Chad to the western coast. From there, a tanker can
reach Texas in half the time it takes from the Persian
Gulf. The next country on the drilling schedule is
Cameroon. "Within the next five years, the region will
be adding two to three million barrels per day to the
world market," the Center for Strategic and
International Studies forecasts: "a full 20 percent of
the new production capacity worldwide." Experts
predict that the eight biggest oil-producing countries
in Africa will earn $35 billion in 2005 alone.
Geologist Tom Windle, who tracked down oil reserves in
West Africa for Amoco, thinks eastern Africa has the
most potential: "If someone came to me and said,
'Here's a billion dollars; I want you to open up a new
frontier basin,' I would say, 'Right, the East African
margin.'" Exxon Mobil, Woodside Petroleum and Tullow
Oil are already at work in the continent's east. In
Somalia, the hunt was halted in 1991 by the country's
devastating civil war. But with a new government
elected in the fall of 2004, the oil companies'
representatives have been flocking to its provisional
capital in Jowhar.
"Africa holds all the aces"
A huge pan-African oil field extends from Port Sudan
to Port Harcourt - with a special attraction: With the
exception of Nigeria, no African country south of the
Sahara is a member of OPEC. And Nigeria itself
continues to toy with the notion of quitting the
cartel, enabling it to boost production to 4 million
barrels a day by 2010.
African muscle would seem the only way to ease the
Arab world's stranglehold on prices. It is no wonder
that Washington considers West Africa one of the
American market's fastest growing sources for oil and
gas.
That, at last, is good news for a continent best known
for its suffering. And the news is getting better
still: China too has discovered Africa's potential as
a supplier. The emerging economic superpower
desperately needs natural resources to maintain its
annual 9 percent growth rate.
Never before have the United States and China been so
focused on Africa, and their interest will only grow
keener. The battle for the black gold has already
begun. "Africa holds all the aces," the magazine
Africa Today says.
The Chinese evidently have few scruples. After the
United States declared Islamic- governed Sudan a rogue
state for harboring Osama Bin Laden, forcing the
American companies to abandon their lucrative trade
with the country's crude, China was only too happy to
fill the void. Today China is a major investor in the
land of the Mahdi. In return, Sudan ships 60 percent
of its oil to the Asian power - not exactly peanuts,
given its daily output of 340,000 barrels. Once the
Melut oil field comes on line in the near future, the
total could rise to 800,000 barrels a day.
The Chinese view their commitment to Sudan as a
long-term partnership. Just recently, an army of
Chinese workers began building a second, 1,500
kilometer pipeline from its southern oil fields to
Port Sudan on the Red Sea. In the quid pro quo deal,
Umar Al Bashir's government - which invests almost
two-thirds of its oil revenues in its military - will
be supplied with weapons from the People's Republic:
armaments it desperately needs to wage war in its
eastern provinces and against the rebels in Darfur.
China looks to profit from genocide
It is no surprise that the Chinese government knows
how to reward such constructive cooperation. Whenever
harsh resolutions against the mass murderers in
Khartoum have been tabled at the UN, China has stood
ready to wield its veto. As U.S. secretary of state,
Colin Powell was quick to condemn the slaughter in
Darfur as genocide. But China's ambassador to the
U.S., Zhou Wenzhong, takes a different view of his
country's actions. "Business is business," he
maintains. "The situation in Sudan is an internal
matter." Now a frustrated United States is resigned to
watching Beijing torpedo its security and human rights
strategies. What is more, it is powerless to stop
China from securing control of Sudan's oil reserves.
China already gets 6 percent of its crude from Sudan,
on a par with its imports from Russia.
"We import oil from every source we can get it from,"
admits Li Xiaobing, deputy director of the West Asia
and Africa Department in China's Ministry of Trade.
For German political scientist Denis Tull - who
compiled a report entitled "The People's Republic of
China's Approach to Africa" - China's growing
political influence in Africa is "generally negative."
Instead of compelling the Africans to embrace
democracy and transparency, Beijing's vehement
"defense of the principle of sovereignty" was instead
benefiting authoritarian African leaders who have been
rebuffed by the West, Tull says.
Their hands tied, EU foreign ministers have watched
China's capitalist corps advance across the continent,
making a mockery of their attempts to democratize the
authoritarian regimes through aid. China already
imports over 28 percent of its oil from Africa (2003:
25.2 percent). Between 1989 and 1997, the volume of
trade rose 431 percent. Since then, it has "more than
quintupled" (Tull) - hitting a record $24 billion.
Sometime soon, China is expected to displace Great
Britain as Africa's third largest trading partner. Of
the 40 bilateral investment agreements China signed
between 1995 and 2003, 18 were with African countries.
By 2004, 700 Chinese companies had descended on the
continent's markets; their direct investments totaled
$1.5 billion.
China is buying up anything its ravenous industrial
sector can consume: wood from Congo, copper from
Zambia, and manganese from Gabon for use in steel
production. In return, Africa is receiving
mass-produced goods made in China. Their affordability
makes these commodities particularly attractive to the
poor countries south of the Sahara: clothing,
transistor radios - and kalashnikovs.
Traffic is heavy in both directions. So much so that
Kenya Airways has opened up a fast lane: Direct
flights now connect Nairobi and Hong Kong. Tons of
trinkets from the Far East are flooding the African
markets. Every few weeks, a new bevy of African
kleptocrats heads off on a pilgrimage to Beijing:
delegations dispatched by bankrupt countries that are
now even denied development aid.
Barred from Britain
Recently, Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki toured the Far
Eastern empire in an attempt to shore up the battered
self-confidence of his corrupt government. Germany has
already frozen €5 million in aid pending government
action on key corruption cases. Its ambassador in
Nairobi is threatening further sanctions, because
donations were used "illegally and wastefully" for
propaganda purposes. And the United Kingdom recently
revoked a visa issued to Kenya's transport minister,
Christopher Ndarathi Murungaru, and barred him - on
grounds of corruption - from setting foot on British
soil.
During his five-day stint in Beijing, however, Kibaki
met with cordial treat treatment - and graciously
accepted his host's pledge of $34 million. The leader
was able to "return home a contented man" from a
"fruitful visit," according to the pro-government
Kenyan newspaper Daily Nation. But the critical
Standard was less euphoric in its assessment of
Kibaki's fundraising trip: "The money is making its
way into the government's pockets and bypassing the
usual controls," the publication warned. It went on to
express the hope that bribes would not induce Kenya's
rulers to make "any wild concessions to the Chinese
government which they prefer not to disclose at this
juncture."
Such fears would appear justified. Zimbabwean
President Robert Mugabe was recently welcomed by
Chinese President Hu Jintao as a "great friend." While
in China, Mugabe reportedly authorized the Chinese to
exploit platinum deposits in his ailing country - and
received military aircraft worth $100 million in
return.
"African leaders like Kenyan President Kibaki or
Zimbabwe's dictator Robert Mugabe are making the same
mistake made by all African leaders before them," says
Kenyan economist James Shikwati, "when they head off
on a begging tour to the Far East." The accord with
China's power brokers could quickly turn into a pact
with the devil. When it comes to alms, African leaders
are prepared to sell out the continent's vast natural
resources - recalling the darkest age of European
imperialism, when entire countries changed hands for
glass beads, liquor and copper wire.
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