Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Maledetto Petrolio! (3)

La ricchezza di petrolio, nel mare in vicinanza delle coste africane,pone
tutti i paesi che si affacciano sul Golfo di Guinea al centro degli
interessi energetici e, per ovvie ragioni geografiche, specialmente degli
USA.
La quantita`,qualita`, unita alle facilita`burocratiche e di trasporto,
fanno di questa sorgente ,una delle piu`importanti per l'economia americana.
Inoltre la posizione dei pozzi, in mare aperto,li rende meno suscettibili da
eventuali subbugli e atti di terrorismo in terra ferma.
Si ripristiranno cosi`, delle tradotte Africa-America, e proprio dal Golfo
di Guinea, che trasporteranno ora un nuovo tipo di " Nero " dall'Africa per
arricchire la nuova America e soltanto le tasche di qualche tiranno piu`
qualche Club associato(la Nigeria fa testo).L'africano si
sostituira`cosi`all'arabo mediorientale( con altri termini di confronto ),
ma la saga di sfruttamento continua; la ricchezza naturale di un paese
povero contribuira`a migliorare anche di piu`quella di uno Stato
gia`ultra-ricco.
La schiavitu`auto-imposta dall'industria col bisogno vitale di "oro nero"
prende oggi il posto a quel traffico di schiavi, di triste memoria, che ha
contribuito alla ricchezza del Nord America negli ultimi secoli.
Giano
--------
(dal "corrierino del dececere")
Africa and African Oil
Repost: African Black Gold
By: Simon Robinson
Time Magazine         Date: 10/28/2002
The sleepy tropical island city of Malabo had hardly changed in years. The
capital of Equatorial Guinea, a tiny West African nation of fewer than
500,000 people, consisted of little more than some moldering Spanish
colonial buildings, a few palm-lined plazas and the tightly packed shanty
towns which encircle most African settlements. Its one claim to fame was
that novelist Frederick Forsyth lived there while he wrote his military
thriller The Dogs of War. But over the past three years, Malabo has been
transformed. Office buildings have shot up, hotels and banks have opened,
and foreigners — once a novelty in Malabo — now cram the town's fancy new
restaurants. There's so much construction, joke the locals, that if you open
your mouth and stick out your tongue someone is likely to build on it.
The source of this economic boom can be found buried beneath the nearby
ocean floor. Over the past decade, foreign oil companies have found at least
500 million barrels of high-grade crude oil in the country's waters.
Production has jumped from just 17,000 barrels per day in 1996 to more than
220,000 and could grow another 50% within three years. The oil boom has
fueled fantastic economic growth — 65% last year, down to an estimated 25%
this year — and pushed annual per capita GDP from $800 seven years ago to
more than $2,000 today. The bonanza in Equatorial Guinea is being repeated
across the region. Chad, one of the poorest countries in the world, will
soon start pumping more than 200,000 barrels of oil a day through a $3.7
billion, 1,070-km pipeline — Africa's biggest-ever infrastructure project —
that transverses Cameroon.
The island nation of São Tomé and Príncipe, which sits on perhaps 4 billion
barrels of crude, is also attracting foreign oilmen. These upstart countries
join such established giants as Nigeria, which plans to increase its output
from its current 1.9 million barrels per day to more than 3 million; Angola,
which wants to double its almost 1 million daily output; and Gabon, which is
encouraging more deepwater exploration to prop up declining production. All
the action makes the waters off West Africa one of the hottest places for
oil exploration in the world. On a global scale, the numbers may seem
modest; total proven reserves in the Gulf of Guinea sit at 40 billion
barrels, less than one-sixth of Saudi Arabia's 261 billion. But Africa is
just getting started. Says Al Stanton, an Edinburgh-based oil analyst with
Deutsche Bank: "The opportunities for expansion are tremendous."
Driving the oil rush is Washington's search for reliable oil suppliers
outside the Middle East — a search made more urgent in the wake of this
month's terror bombing of an oil tanker off the coast of Yemen. European
companies such as TotalFinaElf and Royal Dutch Shell have long been players
in the region but leading the new charge are U.S. giants ExxonMobil and
Chevron and independents such as New York-based Amerada Hess. American firms
have been particularly aggressive in wooing new producing countries like
Equatorial Guinea and can tap their experience in deep water drilling in the
Gulf of Mexico.
West African oil is low in sulphur, which makes it easy to refine. Because
most of it lies offshore, foreign oil companies don't have to deal with
locals beyond a few government officials and hired labor. Transport is easy
too: the oil fields sit a direct tanker trip across the Atlantic from Europe
or America's east coast, with no pesky Suez Canal or Gulf to navigate. The
Bali blast is a reminder that no place is safe from terror, and recent
fighting in Ivory Coast is a symbol of West Africa's volatility, but oilmen
remain bullish in part because oil production is offshore and thus rarely
disturbed by onshore unrest. "West Africa may not be particularly stable but
it is not as dangerous as the Middle East," says George Ayittey, head of the
African Oil Policy Initiative Group, a division of the Israel-based
Institute for Advanced Strategic & Political Studies.
As Africa supplies more of America's oil needs — one Washington think tank
expects Africa's share of the U.S. market (including oil from North Africa)
to grow from 15% today to 25% by 2015 — there has even been Washington
gossip, denied by the State Department, that the U.S. will build a military
base in São Tomé to protect its growing interests in the region. U.S.
officials downplay strategic considerations in the rush to West Africa,
despite the note in Vice President Cheney's recent National Energy Policy
report that West Africa is "one of the fastest-growing sources of oil and
gas for the American market." "There's been all this talk about a strategic
dimension that is not really there," says one U.S. official.
But while West African oil may be good for the U.S., will it be good for
West Africa? Oil-company boosters say the impoverished region will make
billions of dollars, which it can spend on improving health, education and
infrastructure. "There's incredible opportunity for wealth creation for
local people," says Amerada Hess's Carl Tursi. But human-rights activists
say corrupt governments often pocket most of the money. Case in point:
Nigeria, which has exported over $320 billion-worth of high-grade crude over
the past 30 years but has little to show for it beyond some decaying
freeways and sports stadiums.
One of Nigeria's last military rulers, General Sani Abacha, whose death in
1998 led to a return to democratic rule, is believed to have stolen more
than $4 billion. Just last week a leaked imf report found that $4 billion
has disappeared from Angola's budget over the past five years. In Chad, the
government spent $4.5 million of an initial $25 million World Bank payment
on arms to prosecute a war against northern secessionists.
Environmentalists worry that massive infrastructure projects like the
Chad-Cameroon pipeline will destroy sensitive rain forests. Critics also
fear that the oil windfall will help prop up dictators. In Equatorial
Guinea, the ruling party and its leader, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema,
show no sign of giving up control; opposition members are routinely harassed
and tortured, according to Amnesty International. The IMF has cut off
several aid programs because of corruption, and has called for good
governance and good management of oil resources in Equatorial Guinea,
warning that "authorities will need to address the weakness in financial
management and governance if the country is to seize its unique opportunity
to ... achieve broad-based growth and poverty reduction." Until that
happens, the benefits of West Africa's black gold will continue to elude
ordinary people.
Original Link:
http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/article/0,13005,901021028-366267,00.html

 Giano
Azz... Bell'articolo :)  Te lo hanno pubblicato da qualche parte? :)
-Stefano

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
Ricognizione di che...delle aree petrolifere? E`stato gia`fatto credo e nel
link che ho riportato appare tutta l'Africa con le aree ad alta
probabilita`di presenza di petrolio.
Sicuramente un nuovo satellite rivelerebbe la posizione della capoccia del
dececere attorno al Kossovo, dove ancora aspetta il passaggio
dell'oleodotto! ROTFL
Giano