U.S. Cries for African Oil

Americans spend so much time fixated on oil in the Middle East that they generally pay little or no attention to sub-Saharan Africa, which supplies almost as much black gold to the U.S. as the Persian Gulf States. It’s also a region with just as much (if not more) danger of unexpected supply disruption. That’s largely what drove the establishment of AFRICOM, the new U.S. military administrative headquarters (one of six regional HQs worldwide) devoted solely to military relations with 53 African countries.

To put the region in perspective, sub-Saharan Africa accounted for nearly 16% of U.S. daily oil imports in 2007, versus just under 18% for the Persian Gulf States and just over 18% for Canada according to the U.S. Department of Energy. On an individual country basis, here are our top five foreign suppliers and our daily purchases in thousands of barrels:

Canada 2243
Saudi Arabia 1487
Venezuela 1336
Mexico 1258
Nigeria 1131

Angola, with 507,000 barrels daily, ranks seventh, just behind Algeria. Chad, Gabon, Congo (Brazzaville), and Equatorial Guinea are petroleum suppliers to the U.S. as well, along with minor players including South Africa, Mauritania, Ivory Coast, Ghana, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (Kinshasa).

Nigeria is particularly vulnerable to disruption. Rebel groups opposed to President Umaru Yar'Adua have repeatedly destroyed oil pumping stations, pipelines, and other distribution facilities. The bold Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta has sent militants in boats through heavy seas to attack the Bonga oil field more than 65 miles from land, temporarily shutting production of more than 200,000 barrels per day.

It is not just rebel groups that threaten the Nigerian supply, either. White-collar oil workers threatened to strike after talks between U.S. energy giant Chevron Corp. and the country's white-collar oil industry workers broke down recently. A walkout was averted, but the issues remain.

The other major situation the U.S. faces with its African oil supply is competition, especially from China. The Angolans supplied almost as much oil (465,000 barrels daily) to China as they did to the U.S. in 2007. That number will almost certainly go up. The Council on Foreign Relations points out

Beijing secured a major stake in future oil production in 2004 with a $2 billion package of loans and aid that includes funds for Chinese companies to build railroads, schools, roads, hospitals, bridges, and offices; lay a fiber-optic network; and train Angolan telecommunications workers.

Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos received his degree from the Azerbaijan Oil and Chemistry Institute in the old USSR and served as his party’s (MPLA) representative to China shortly before becoming President. The U.S. has been able to deal with him, but he’s no particular friend. After his 29 years in office during which Angola has sunk to one of the world’s poorest and least-developed countries despite almost limitless oil, diamonds, and other resources, there’s no guarantee that the situation in the country will remain stable enough to assure the U.S. of continued supply.

With two of the top seven U.S. oil suppliers vulnerable to supply disruptions at any moment, is it any wonder that the American military presence in Africa is slated for the major expansion?

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds

Tags: romantic thriller, Congo, blood diamonds

Abuse On Angola-Congo Border

A new wave of deportees has arrived in Kasai Occidental province in the Democratic Republic of Congo (the setting for Heart of Diamonds) from the diamond mining region in Angola. Most of the women among the 27,000 people expelled by the Angolans have been sexually abused, according to local health officials.

"There are many injured people and 80 percent of the women had been raped," according to Pierre Didi Mpata, a doctor and director of an NGO running a local health center in Kamako, a village near the Congolese border with Angola not far from Mai-Munene where much of the story in Heart of Diamonds takes place. Some 5,000 refuges now crowd Kamako. The UN mission in DRC, MONUC, reports 22,230 more DRC citizens were sent back from Angola in the last two weeks. They are now between Kahungua and Tembo, some 95 kilometers from the Angolan border.

Mpata was quoted in a UN Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN) report that among the people who had been sexually abused was Caroline Lomelo (not her real name), a mother of two.

"I was badly beaten up and raped by five Angolan police officers when they forcefully expelled us," she said. Lomelo returned to the DRC five days ago from Angola. According to Mpata, Lomelo can barely stand because she has a sexually transmitted infection. She is also six months pregnant.

"She is in danger of having an abortion because of the [gonorrhoea] infection she contracted," Mpata said.

Lomelo, who was training to be a nurse, said she had gone to Angola from her home town of Lodja, in the central province of Kasai Oriental, to look for her brother.

The Angolan authorities began to expel illegal immigrants from the country in December 2003, targeting illegal workers in its diamond mines near the border with the DRC. Previous mass expulsions in the area had been halted by an agreement between the two countries. In December 2007, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) denounced "the pervasive and systematic use of rape and violence perpetrated by the Angolan army during the expulsions of Congolese migrants working in diamond mines in the Angolan province of Lunda Norte".

The current wave of expelled immigrants have nothing and are exhausted after walking at least 100 kilometers from Angola where they were living in churches and schools where supplies of basic items were inadequate. "It's a miracle they survived," Mpata said.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds

Tags: romantic thriller, Congo, blood diamonds