Africa’s Energy Potential
VIEWPOINT
by Ed Royce
Gas prices are cutting deeper and deeper into our pockets, now nearing $3 a gallon. Moreover, our energy security again is making headlines.
Americans are certain to hear more calls to reduce our dependence on foreign oil in the months ahead. President Bush spoke of this as a goal in his State of the Union address. Sen. John Kerry is campaigning on making the U.S. independent of Middle Eastern oil within 10 years.
What is unlikely to be heard in this discussion,it’s absent in the Kerry plan,is recognition of West Africa’s growing importance to our energy security.
Despite years of concern and several plans, we are moving steadily away from oil independence. Prior to the 1973 Arab oil boycott, the U.S. imported 28% of its oil; today it’s 57%. This trend is unlikely to reverse given opposition in the Senate to the president’s proposal to develop oil reserves in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, falling domestic production and growing consumption.
Worldwide demand for oil has been increasing. China’s oil consumption, second only to the U.S., is expected to double in the next 20 years, reaching 11 million barrels a day. India, with more than 1 billion people and a booming economy, looms as a major oil consumer. An expected global economic turnaround would further boost oil use. Thankfully, the market has responded: Increased demand has spurred increased oil supply.
Most people do not associate sub-Saharan Africa with oil, but advanced offshore drilling technology (largely American) has made West Africa a top oil-prospecting region. With American and other energy companies set to invest tens of billions of dollars in Gulf of Guinea countries,including Angola, Equatorial Guinea and Congo-Brazzaville,this region’s oil production will increase 70% in the next couple of years. Nigeria already is the fifth largest oil supplier to the U.S. West Africa, which currently accounts for about 10% of U.S. oil imports, could be supplying 25% in 10 years.
This increased oil production is good for our country. Greater world supply will press down world prices (aiding Orange County drivers) and help our economy. Energy production in Africa accounts for more than 100,000 U.S.-based jobs, many in California.
Much West African oil is high quality “sweet” crude, well suited for U.S. refineries. Moreover, the region’s producers are apt to remain reliable. Among them, only Nigeria is a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries cartel, while our political relations with West African oil producers are generally good. With no bottleneck as in the Strait of Hormuz, oil shipments to the U.S. from West Africa are less vulnerable to terrorist attack than shipments originating from Persian Gulf states.
Africa’s oil potential is getting noticed in Washington. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has told Congress that African oil “plays an increasingly important role in our energy security.” Another top U.S. official has even called Africa a “strategic interest” because of its oil. I have welcomed Africa’s oil development, with a caveat being its possibly harmful impact on Africans.
It’s not easy for a developing country to manage oil revenues and fend off corruption. It is sobering that the average Nigerian is worse off today than 25 years ago despite the $300 billion in oil revenue that has been generated. One watchdog group has charged that a stunning $4 billion of Angola’s oil revenue disappeared between 1997 and 2002. There are troubling signs that Equatorial Guinea, a traditional coffee and cocoa-producer, is falling prey to increasingly bad government fueled by its oil revenue bonanza.
To help make oil development work for Africans, the U.S. and others must promote transparency and the rule of law. The Chad-Cameroon pipeline project, backed by the U.S., is an innovative attempt to ensure that the rush of oil revenues these impoverished countries are receiving is used to build schools, not palaces in Europe. There is more we can do, including using our diplomatic weight to push these goals. An improved social and commercial climate will benefit U.S. energy companies investing in the region. It also is what Africans deserve in exchange for their natural resources.
Like it or not, foreign oil will be central to our energy security in the foreseeable future. We should encourage domestic oil production and conservation. And the market will develop alternative fuels.
But expanding and diversifying our oil supply is important, too. That’s why Americans will learn more about West Africa’s energy potential in the years ahead.
Royce is the Republican congressman from Fullerton and chairman of the House Subcommittee on Africa.
