SPEAKING
FREELY The
long oil road to Tianjin By
Emanuele Scimia
Speaking Freely is
an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest
writers to have their say. Please
click here if you are interested in
contributing.
While dark clouds
continue to gather over the economies of the
United States and Europe, African leaders are
assessing the damage done to their own countries
and looking for potential (Asian) antidotes.
Nigeria, Africa's biggest oil producer and a sort
of geopolitical pivot of the continent's western
rim, provides a case study of the problems that
the region's nations are meeting to find
alternatives to American and European markets.
The United States, following the increase
of its domestic production and a series of
refinery closures, has drastically cut
back oil imports from
Nigeria. In February, the US imported 352,000
barrels per day against over 1 million a year
earlier (at this time Washington was the biggest
buyer of Nigerian crude), according to the US
Energy Department's Energy Information
Administration.
In a report published on
May 28, the African Development Bank drew a grim
picture of growth perspectives in Africa due to
the fallouts of the European sovereign debt
crisis. Faced with a dramatic slowdown of their
own economies, countries in the Old Continent have
slashed import of goods coming from Africa, as
well as investments and economic aids towards
underdeveloped African nations.
Notably,
such a reduction touches upon the export of oil
and other raw materials, which accounted for 59%
of the Euro-African trade in 2010. This cutback
might be partly mitigated after the European
Union's embargo on Iranian oil becomes fully
operational from July 1.
The Nigerian
government in Abuja aims at compensating for the
drop in crude imports by the United States and
Europe with a surge of Chinese demand. In this
regard, the Central Bank of Nigeria aims at
diversifying its currency reserves, raising
holdings into yuan, so as to facilitate trade
between the two countries. On the other hand, to
minimize the exposure towards the indebted
European Union (EU) members, the Nigerian Central
Bank could trim the share of its foreign stocks in
euros.
The first hurdle that hinders
Nigeria's plans to divert crude exports from the
Euro-Atlantic region to China is that of distance.
The voyage from the Nigerian oil terminal of Bonny
to the Chinese harbor of Tianjin is 17,000
kilometers, while it is just over 8,000 km to New
York and 7,000 km to Rotterdam, in Europe. Since
Chinese buyers should recover the cost of the long
crude shipping, the reality is that they could
call on price cuts.
It is worth noting
that Nigeria and China have recently failed to
strike a deal to harmonize their commercial
relations, with Abuja claiming that Beijing is
flooding Nigeria with substandard products - an
allegation of a sort that appears to be
increasingly frequent among China's partners in
Africa and Latin America.
However, the
worst danger for Nigeria's oil supply to Asia is
going to arise from the protracted condition of
instability sweeping through the country and its
neighbors, a situation that has always haunted
European and US trade in this region.
Internally, Nigeria's central institutions
are threatened by two rebel groups: Boko Haram and
the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger
Delta (MEND). Boko Haram is a bloody Islamist
outfit acting in the north of the country, where
the majority of the population professes the
Muslim faith. This jihadist organization is
notorious for launching al-Qaeda or Taliban-style
suicide attacks against police stations, churches
and other civilian targets.
In the south,
the explicit purpose of MEND's armed rebellion is
that of forcing both the central government and
foreign oil companies to share with local
communities in the Niger Delta a greater portion
of the revenues from oil production in this
region.
The major threat at present seems
to be coming from Boko Haram, which is gaining a
transnational dimension within the growing
Islamist nebula raging across the Sahel region (of
which the northern Nigeria is part). The group's
tentacles stretch from the north of Mali to Chad,
another breeding point linked to the insurgence in
the Sudanese region of Darfur.
Although
Nigeria is not adjacent to Mali, the civil war
that broke out there earlier this year, with the
constitution of a de-facto independent state in
its northern region of Azawad, represents a
further element of volatility for Nigerian
authorities. Since January, the National Movement
for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), a secularist
formation fighting for Tuareg independence, has
claimed the control of this large swathe of Mali.
MNLA is ruling the Azawad region along
with jihadist formations such as Ansar Dine,
al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the
Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa
(MUJAO). Reportedly, militants of Boko Haram - or
perhaps groups tied to it - operate in the Malian
city of Gao.
Such a connection between
secularist and Islamist Tuareg groupings - which
many observers see as quite unnatural - has
prompted more than 400,000 Malian refugees to flee
to neighboring Burkina Faso, Niger, Senegal or
Mauritania. Because of a potential domino effect,
it may also provide Boko Haram - and supposed
political manipulators behind it - with a
successful model to raise the stakes, claiming an
independent state in the north of Nigeria.
Until now, Boko Haram has called for the
extension of Sharia law throughout Nigeria (and
not only in the northern part of the nation, where
it is already in force at present) more than for
an overt independence of its regional stronghold.
In order to protect their economic and
geostrategic interests in Western Africa,
countries like the US, Britain, France and
Australia have arranged military special
operations in the area. On March 13, Australian
daily The Age wrote about the country's special
operation squadrons that had been deployed in
Nigeria (as well as in several other African
countries), ready to intervene if Australian
citizens (usually national companies' workers,
journalists or humanitarian activists) were
kidnapped or endangered by armed groups or common
criminals.
As far as regional security,
military and intelligence issues are concerned, it
seems as though Western countries are trying to
revive in Africa "indirect rule", the system of
colonial government set up by the British Empire
in some of its African and Asian dependencies,
whose mastermind was Frederick Lugard, the High
Commissioner of the UK Protectorate of Northern
Nigeria from 1899 to 1906. Under this system,
native rulers could manage local affairs, while
British officials kept control over taxation,
defense and foreign affairs.
It is
uncertain whether China - though the question
could be extended to India as well - is willing to
intrude heavily into this African quagmire, taking
into consideration Beijing's resistance to meddle
in the domestic affairs of its economic partners
and the first cracks in its economy.
At
any rate, China's challenge for the eroding parts
of Euro-American vested interests in the oil-rich
Gulf of Guinea are much more complex than the
parallel Red Dragon's penetration in the Horn of
Africa.
Emanuele Scimia is a
journalist and geopolitical analyst based in
Rome.
(Copyright 2012 Emanuele Scimia)
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please
click here if you are interested in
contributing.
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
