pup55 wrote:With the exception of 2003 this appears to have been a steadily growing region.
Thousand barrels daily 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
Cameroon 88 81 75 68 62 58
Chad - - - 24 168 173
Rep. of Congo (Brazzaville) 275 271 258 243 240 253
Equatorial Guinea 117 173 210 234 329 355
Gabon 327 301 295 240 235 234
Total 807 825 838 809 1034 1074
Oil-addicted America finds a temporary fix in Africa (link)
By Paul Salopek
Chicago Tribune
Monday, August 14, 2006
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Americans already get more oil from Africa than from Saudi Arabia. By 2015, oil experts say, African states will supply one-quarter of U.S. imports, up from 15 percent today. The United States quietly signaled this shift in 2002, when the State Department declared African oil a "strategic national interest," meaning in diplomatic code that U.S. troops may intervene to protect it.
"I think the U.S. military would find our swamps worse than Iraq," snorted Austin Onuoha, a Nigerian human-rights activist who specializes in oil issues. "But at least they might build some infrastructure after they invade. Americans always do this, right?"
Onuoha's sarcasm was well-earned. He was talking from his blacked-out house in the oil-rich Niger Delta. The electricity in Africa's petro-giant had winked out again. And this fit sourly into his main thesis: Oil is rotting Africa's frail democracies.
The Niger Delta Insurgency and its Threat to Energy Security (link)
By Erich Marquardt
Volume 4, Issue 16 (August 10, 2006)
During the first half of 2006, Nigeria's energy industry was crippled by guerrilla attacks from militants demanding a larger share of the country's oil revenue. The guerrillas, primarily from Nigeria's Ijaw ethnic community, live in the country's Niger Delta region where the majority of its energy resources are extracted. The ethnic roots of the crisis and the terrain of the delta make government attempts to end the insurgency difficult since a military response could lead to the complete shutdown of the country's oil exports. Given the significance of energy exports to the Nigerian economy, the roots of the current crisis and the reasons behind the government's failure to stabilize the delta, it becomes clear that attacks on energy facilities in the delta will continue to be an irritant to Africa's largest oil producer.
The power needs of Europe, the Middle Eastand North Africa could be met by an ambitious idea to network renewable energies across the region. The cornerstone of the plan, developed by a group of scientists, economists and businessmen,involves peppering the Sahara Desert with solar thermal power plants, then transmitting the electricity through massive grids.
Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan was scheduled to present this green-energy idea, dubbed DESERTEC, to members of the European Parliament in Brussels on 28 November.
The vision is ambitious: it would require roughly 1,000 100-megawatt power plants, using mirrors to concentrate energy from the Sun's rays, throughout the Middle East and North Africa to meet the region's projected energy needs. A high-efficiency electricity grid, yet to be built, would then ferry the power around and across the Mediterranean Sea and northern Europe.
Initial solar thermal plants are being planned in Algeria, Egypt and Morocco, with more under construction in Spain and Italy.
Bringing electricity from Africa to Europe presents another challenge. The DLR says that €45 billion of the overall budget should be invested by 2050 to place high-voltage d.c. transmission cables throughout the region. Such a line already exists between Norway and the Netherlands.
The DESERTEC group is asking parliamentarians to set up a €10-billion fund to finance the development of solar thermal plants over the next 7 years, and to establish a political framework for the idea.
A high-efficiency electricity grid, yet to be built, would then ferry the power around and across the Mediterranean Sea and northern Europe.
The situation is raising fears that, in spite of the strong growth many African countries have seen in recent years, there could be a repeat of the 1980s’ debt crisis in the developing world that was caused in part by the oil shocks of the 1970s.
Surveying 13 non-oil-producing African countries, including South Africa, Ghana, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Senegal, the IEA found that the increase in the cost of oil bought by the countries since 2004 was equivalent to 3 per cent of combined GDP.
This was more than the sum of debt relief and aid received over the past three years by the countries, which have a combined population of 270m, of whom 104m live on less than $1 a day.
The IEA’s warning comes as Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade said “crippling” oil prices threatened to provoke “unrest and violence” in Africa.
Africa’s economic growth has remained strong this year, but increased fuel costs have put upward pressure on inflation and slowed growth in some countries. They have also contributed to social problems including rising food prices, power cuts due to the use of diesel-powered generation in many areas – and an increasing burden of fuel subsidies.
Sound Bioenergy Policies Could Help Lift West African Rural Areas Out of Poverty
New report shows that bioenergy can power sustainable rural development
For Immediate Release
Rome (October 16, 2008) —
A new report released by the United Nations Foundation, the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development and the Energy and Security Group finds that bioenergy can provide significant economic and environmental opportunities for rural areas in West Africa. The report, “Sustainable Bioenergy Report in UEMOA Member Countries”, released today at a side event at FAO Headquarters in Rome, finds that donor and host country investments in bioenergy can reduce the exposure of West African countries to high food and oil prices and open up new economic opportunities in clean energy development.
Biomass can also expand agricultural production across the UEMOA (the Economic and Monetary Union of West Africa) nations of Benin, Burkina-Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo which have been hit hard by the food crisis and rising oil prices. Sound bioenergy production policies can help drive a coordinated approach to poverty reduction and reduce the impact of climate change on these already vulnerable areas.
“This report takes on the twin challenges of energy and agriculture and explores how bioenergy crops and modern uses of biomass in rural areas of West Africa could play a role in alleviating poverty while protecting food production,” said Melinda Kimble, Senior Vice President with the UN Foundation. “It is vital that policies and technologies are developed and implemented to better use agricultural and forest residues. If used correctly, these energy feedstocks hold great potential for efficient and affordable locally-produced fuels and this can be done in a sustainable and responsible way that ensures the world’s most vulnerable populations have access to clean fuels and are not put at further risk.”
Commissioned by UEMOA and the Rural Hub for Western and Central Africa, the report finds that these oil-import dependent countries possess enough arable land and forests to cultivate sufficient foodstocks and harvest biomass to produce expanded amounts of bioenergy. But less than two percent of these arable acres are irrigated, leaving them vulnerable to erratic weather patterns. The report concludes that greater investment in irrigation, as well as fertilizer and farm equipment are all needed if agricultural yields are to increase in line with a growing population.
Better yields are essential in order to improve standards of living in UEMOA countries, since roughly 70% of the population depends on agricultural or forestry-related jobs. Conversely, only seven percent of the rural population has access to electricity, greatly limiting economic growth, the report finds.
“Access to affordable energy is a critical factor in the development of rural communities, and one that is often forgotten,” said Dr. Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, Executive Director of the Rural Hub. “Bioenergy offers African farmers a unique opportunity to generate the energy that they need to grow food crops and improve agriculture productivity. With the right public policies in place and the blueprint for action included in the report, UEMOA countries can harness that potential and win the fight against both rural poverty and climate change.”
According to the report, key factors to guide sustainable bioenergy include improving agriculture and forest productivity, and protecting watersheds, which would also put governments in a better position to fight against climate change and cope with inevitable impacts. Traditional wood biomass production – 73% of primary energy used in the region – must be adapted to create more efficient and cleaner fuel. Bioenergy can be transformative for the region – greatly expanding electricity and energy access, creating more jobs and better income in rural communities and growth across national and regional economies. Innovative crop management, farmer training, and consistent investment are needed to improve agriculture productivity in this region. Land use, protection of small producers, infrastructure improvement, data collection, and women’s roles are some of the critical points which must be taken into account by governments in order to secure sustainability, the report found.
“Achieving the Millenium Development Goals demands well-integrated agricultural and energy policies if progress is to be sustained,” said Kandeh K. Yumkella, Director-General of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization. “It is my hope that this report provides a new view of the potential of agriculture to help millions of Africans get out of the dark and out of poverty.”
The full report and executive summary can be found online at http://www.unfoundation.org/press-cente ... eport.html
For more information, or to arrange an interview, contact John Anthony at 202.277.2103. If you are in Rome, contact Marie-Vincente Pasdeloup at +33 6 20 46 00 14.
BACKGROUND
About the UN Foundation
The United Nations Foundation is an advocate for the UN and a platform for connecting people, ideas and capital to help the United Nations solve global problems. We build partnerships, grow constituencies, mobilize resources and advocate policy changes to support the UN’s work for individual and global progress. The UN Foundation’s work — focused on select global problems — is decreasing child mortality, improving disaster relief, protecting diverse cultures and environments, creating a clean energy future, empowering women and girls, and improving U.S.-UN relations. The UN Foundation is a public charity. For more information, visit www.unfoundation.org.
The Rural Hub for Western and Central Africa is a non-governmental organization whose goal is to assist West and Central African stakeholders (States, Inter-governmental Organisations, Civil Society Organisations and Development Partners) to promote coherence in rural development programmes worldwide. For more information, visit http://www.hubrural.org
lorenzo wrote:No replies, I see. Telling enough.
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