US and Nigeria host high-level seminar on African oil security
Mon Mar 7, 9:21 AM ET
ABUJA (AFP) - Military officers and officials from Africa and the United States gathered in the Nigerian capital Abuja for a five-day seminar on improving the security of the continent's oil and gas supplies.
The conference on "Energy and Security in Africa" was organised by the US Defense Department's Africa Center for Security Studies and by the defence ministry of Nigeria, Africa's largest oil producer.
Generals, diplomats and ministers from 15 African oil and gas producers joined military officers and defence experts from the United States, Britain, France, Canada and Denmark and executives from international oil giants.
Africa -- and in particular the Gulf of Guinea region off the continent's western coast -- is a rapidly expanding source of oil, but also prey to violent political instability which could threaten US and European supplies.
Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo, in an address to the conference read out by a junior defence minister, said that it was time that the oil-hungry western powers paid more attention to the security situation in his region.
"Recent events, including in particular the instability in the Middle East, have created a situation where the Gulf of Guinea and other oil producing areas of Africa have suddenly emerged as areas where the international community must pay particular attention," said Obasanjo's message to the delegates.
Delegates were told that the Gulf of Guinea supplies 15 percent of US oil imports and seven percent of Europe's, and that this proportion will grow as more deep-sea fields are developed and more countries begin to drill.
But the region remains unstable. The governments of both Sao Tome and Equatorial Guinea, small countries with massive reserves of off-shore oil in the Gulf of Guinea, have in recent years been threatened by coup attempts.
In Nigeria, which exports more than 2.5 million barrels of crude per day, the profits from stealing oil and from shaking down oil giants for protection money fund armed militia groups and a conflict that kills hundreds every year.
In August last year world oil prices -- already high because of the ongoing violence in the Middle East -- were pushed to record peaks after one Nigerian militia leader threatened to lead attacks against foreign-owned oil platforms.
Over the course of the week, delegates will meet to discuss ways of sharing their knowledge and expertise to better protect oil production and exports.
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