The new Gulf oil states
The United States used to attach little importance to Africa, but now it is reviewing its oil sources strategy and sub-Saharan Africa, with its good quality reserves, could account for 25% of all US crude oil imports by 2015.
by JEAN-CHRISTOPHE SERVANT *
WHILE the United States marshals its forces to attack Iraq, it is also engaged in an equally strategic battle several thousand kilometres away. This calm offensive, as the Nigerian daily The Vanguard (1) calls it, targets oil reserves south of the Sahara and is designed "partly to avoid antagonising its Middle Eastern allies and partly to avoid generating a perception that it cares only about Africa's resources" (2). According to Walter Kansteiner, US Under-Secretary of State for African affairs, African oil "has become a national strategic interest" (3). Ed Royce, the influential Republican senator for California and chairman of the Congress African sub-committee, maintains "African oil should be treated as a priority for US national security post 9-11" (4).
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