Why is Africa so attractive to the U.S. in terms of oil?
Africa is on a forward curve in terms of oil production, one of the few places where this is so. This is absolutely critical, because much of the rest of the world is on a downward production curve. Many older oil fields, like in Mexico and the U.S., are in decline.
What makes Africa really appealing is that a lot of the most promising oil fields are offshore. This just lights up the eyes of American oil men, for two reasons. One is that they're the world leaders in the technology necessary to extract deep, offshore oil. Nigeria, Angola, Equatorial Guinea do not possess this technology and know-how, so they have to offer partnerships to the American companies and the Europeans. It's different in Saudi Arabia, or Iran or Iraq, because the oil is not below the ocean, and they've mastered that technology. They don't need the Americans as much. But the Africans do. The Chinese companies are also not up to speed on these technologies.
Second, you don't have to worry about terrorists or guerillas when you're 100 miles offshore. The U.S. has developed these drilling rigs that are like floating cities. They contain storage facilities, dormitories, docks. So they pump for oil, fill their onboard storage facilities, and the tankers get pumped with the crude and go back to Houston. Nobody ever touches the soil of Africa.
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Newsvine
Furl
Google
Yahoo
Paradoxically,
it was Africa's shorelines and coastal configurations that precluded the development of large harbors for oceanic travel (vs. sophisticated river navigation which were widely in evidence along the Nile, Zambezi and other continental river systems). The absence of ocean-going ships put African empires like the Fon, Ashanti, Mali, Songhay and others at a long-term competitive disadvantage with respect to the Portuguese and Spanish (and later the Dutch and British). Oil offers a second bite at the apple and an opportunity to forestall the underdevelopment of the continent. I believe, however, that the mechanism used by those empires in the 16th and 17th centuries to prolong their preeminence (internal slave trades) led to the destabilization of the continent - and leaves their descendants poorly positioned to maximize their bargaining position vis-avis the West.
However, it is precisely this geo-political opportunity that suggests the singular importance of black folk beginning the arduous study of math and science. With the combined efforts of Africans on the continent and in the Diaspora, nation-states constructed upon old European models will be wholly unable to leverage the wealth beneath the sea.Â