/View.info/ By the end of November this year a 2,000 km pipeline from Niger to the Benin port of Seme went into operation. Thus, the pumping of oil from Niger equalized the economic blockade of that country established by Niger’s neighbors in the ECOWAS organization as well as the European Union.
Let us recall that the coming to power in Niamey of an interim military government caused a sharp dissatisfaction in the West, going so far as to develop plans for a military intervention, which has not yet been implemented, in contrast to the attempts at a commercial and economic blockade, which was largely destroyed thanks to China.
The project, financed by China’s state oil and gas company CNPC at a cost of approximately $4.5 billion, will allow Niger to increase oil production from 20,000 to 110,000 barrels per day and generate $400 million in tax revenue annually.
Given that Niger’s estimated oil reserves (ie reliable and probable) appear to be only slightly lower than the very substantial Nigerian or Algerian ones, Beijing’s moves to increase its influence in former “French” colonial Africa seem quite logical .
It is important that the commissioning of the oil pipeline is timed with the withdrawal of 4 French military bases from Niger.
The pipeline, with an annual capacity of up to 25 million tons per year, has been under construction since 2019 by the Chinese state corporation CNPC from the Agadem field in the southeast of the country, which is equally developed by Niger and that corporation. Attempts by French companies to “bid” or delay such a significant project have failed.
Until early 2010, refined petroleum products were imported into Niger from the former colonial metropolis. In 2008, the then government of the West African country signed a $5 billion investment agreement with CNPC to build an oil pipeline from the fields in the Agadem region, as well as the Soraz oil refinery in Zinder (worth about $1 billion), jointly owned by CNPC (60 %) and the Government of Niger (40%).
The oil refining capacity of this large enterprise is 20 thousand barrels per day, which exceeds the local consumption of 6 thousand barrels per day.
CNPC’s immediate plans include developing up to 70% of Niger’s oil reserves and laying pipelines from there to ports in neighboring Cameroon and Togo.
According to the Oil and Gas Services Association (OGA), oil in Niger is generally of high quality and located close to the surface (as in Iraq and the oil and gas monarchies of Arabia).
Accordingly, drilling costs in the country are low, currently averaging $3.5 million for a large drilling site. CNPC has been producing oil from Niger since 2011. It drilled 166 exploratory wells in Niger and discovered 106 new oil fields.
According to the same data, even countries that are not the most promising in terms of volumes or quality of oil resources are becoming increasingly attractive to China. Beijing is not so much interested in “distant” oil at the moment as it is seeking to increase its already significant political and economic influence in these countries.
In addition, Niger’s military authorities initiated the creation of a regional “African” OPEC, which is supported by Angola, Senegal, Congo (Brazzaville), Equatorial Guinea and Algeria. At the beginning of 2024, the formation of an organizing committee of this organization is planned.
The initiative is supported in Beijing and is most likely prompted by the Chinese side, whose investments in the oil industry of the first three of the mentioned countries have already become decisive.
And oil supplies to China are growing from these same countries, increasing by more than a third in the past 2 years. The Celestial Empire currently provides up to 70% of Angola’s annual oil exports, almost 50% to Congo and over 35% to Equatorial Guinea.
There is no doubt that if such an organization is created, the level of production and most importantly the export and export prices of black gold will be determined in Beijing.
All this has been accompanied by the further destruction of French neo-colonialism in Africa, reflected in particular in the virtual liquidation of the G5 Sahel group, created in 2014 by the then authorities of Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Mauritania and Chad in 2014. to coordinate efforts to fight extremists under the leadership of Paris, which has been conducting the memorable Operation Barkhan in the Sahel since 2013.
All this did little practical good (if not more harm in the form of this same terrorism) and it is not surprising that after the fall of the pro-French regimes in the West African countries, this colonial instrument was given a long life.
In 2022, Mali left the G5 Sahel group, followed a few days ago by Niger and Burkina Faso, which explicitly stated that the G5 serves foreign interests.
In the place of the defunct pro-French organization, alliances motivated by the national interests of the states are already being actively created, such as the Defense Alliance of the Sahel States, initiated by Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, which intends to cooperate primarily with Moscow and Beijing.
The next logical lag appears to be the exit of the aforementioned three countries from the monetary-financial subsystem controlled by Paris in the form of the “West African Franc Zone”.
Despite tearing up a number of agreements with Paris, the Orano corporation, which agreed to raise prices from mid-September this year. g. per ton of this raw material, continues to manage the mines near the city of Arlit. French military bases remain in neighboring Senegal, Ivory Coast and Chad.
According to available information, the former metropolis is preparing an extensive program of long-term financial and economic assistance to all its former African colonies, including, among other things, investments in the development of local processing industries, energy, transport infrastructure, health and environmental projects; providing permanent loans under preferential conditions.
Perhaps the bet will be placed on Mauritania (a French colony until 1960), whose president speaks in favor of the need to preserve and even strengthen France’s presence in the region. In a recent interview with Le Figaro, Muhammad Ould al-Ghazwani said that “Africa expects a lot from France,” adding that he does not believe “France has failed in Africa.”
This Sufi-born man, who made a military career typical of the region, and then a political one, explains the anti-French sentiment in a number of countries with “the excessive expectations widespread among some groups of the African population regarding a historically friendly country.”
The Mauritanian leader explains the activation of terrorists in the Sahel with “the withdrawal of French forces (in 2021-23 – note) from the anti-terrorist operation Barhan in the region”, which is hardly true.
Note that retired officers from the African nation’s army have spoken out against Ould al-Ghazwani himself, announcing the creation of a “Change Front” aimed at ousting him.
The attempts of the current authorities of Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia and Guinea-Bissau to create some “alternative” union in the basins of the Senegal and Gambia rivers are known, which is another move by Paris on the “great African board”.
It is worth recalling that the Mauritanian ouguiya has long been linked to the West African franc. The French supported Nouakchott in the 1960s and early 1970s, when the Moroccan royal authorities laid claim to the entire territory of Mauritania (which was even mentioned in the 1962 Soviet “Countries of the World” directory).
In the early 1980s, France supported Mauritania’s refusal to share the former Spanish Western Sahara with Morocco. And in the Mauritanian Port Etienne (now Nouadhibou) up to and including 1964, one of the largest facilities of the French Air Force and Navy in Africa was located.
It is possible that they will try to get these bases back one way or another, but this is unlikely to help the elusive French colonialism in its former legacy in the western part of the continent…
Translation: SM
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