We begin today’s broadcast with a look at Africa and oil. It’s a little known fact: the United States today imports more oil from Africa than from Saudi Arabia. More than $50 billion in foreign investment in African oil is expected over the next three years.
What has this oil boom meant for Africa’s ordinary citizens? Our first guest spent a year reporting across the continent to find out. John Ghazvinian is a journalist who has written for publications including Newsweek, The Nation and Time Out New York. His new book is called “Untapped: The Scramble for Africa’s Oil.” The book compares the global competition for the continent’s oil resources to the nineteenth century scramble for colonization.
John Ghazvinian has just returned from Nigeria, where oil has been the driving force behind a longstanding bloodshed. Protesters in Ogoniland have just ended their week-long occupation of a major oil pipeline hub that forced Royal Dutch Shell to cut their daily production by nearly 40%. In recent weeks, villagers demanding compensation and regional control over Nigerian oil have kidnapped at least 13 foreign workers, occupied a Chevron oilfield, and bombed other international oil pipelines. Two major US companies, Chevron and Hercules Offshore, are evacuating all their non-essential workers from the oil-rich country.
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AMY GOODMAN: The fact that the United States gets more oil from Africa—now, that’s a continent versus Saudi Arabia, which is a country. That’s not often recognized by our leaders, the continent versus country issue, but that’s still extremely significant. Give us the picture of Africa, where the oil is and where many are hoping it will be.
JOHN GHAZVINIAN: Yeah, actually, you know, the US, as you say, gets as much oil now from—as we do from Saudi Arabia, but actually we’re going to be getting about—you know, much more in the next few years. This is what’s significant is that by 2015, we’re going to be getting 25% of our imported oil from Africa. And, you know, this is why I wrote the book, really, because I feel like this is something we don’t pay a lot of attention to. When we think of oil, we tend to think of the Middle East or other parts or Venezuela or other parts of the world. But Africa is becoming increasingly important for our way of life and our energy needs, and I think it’s important for people to have some idea what some of the issues are in some of these countries.
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http://www.democracynow.org/2007/5/17/untapped_the_scramble_for_africas_oilHere's the deal: US Big Oil is in Africa, China is in Africa. And that means that the US will want to increase it's military presence in Africa. And we NEVER go into a region with upfront motives of "We're going in to get the oil." It's always "We're going in to fight Communism", "We're going in to fight Terror" and "We're going in for humanitarian reasons".
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