(I host a radio show called Your Call on KALW 91.7 FM in San Francisco and post information about show topics when they’re political.)
On Monday’s show, we’ll be talking about Africa’s oil.
The United States now imports the same amount of oil from Africa as it does from Saudi Arabia. Between now and the end of the decade, $50 billion will be invested in the exploration and production of oil in Africa, one-third of that money coming from the U.S.
How is oil and the money it brings transforming the continent? Is any of the money benefiting the African people? Those are a few of the questions John Ghazvinian set out to answer as he traveled through 12 African countries .
On Monday’s Your Call, we’ll talk to Ghazvinian about his travels and his new book, Untapped: The Scramble for Africa’s Oil.
“Thanks to more than a decade of wildly successful discoveries by the world’s largest oil companies, as wel as the efforts of a growing army of Washington lobbyists and lawmakers, Africa has been quietly transformed in policy-making circles from an insignificant backwater into a potentially lucrative new ssource of oil and gas for the global market. Listen to some of the more zealous advocates and you may even hear wild talk about how it may soon ‘replace the Middle East.'”
Here are a few facts about Africa’s oil:
One-third of the world’s new oil discoveries since the year 2000 have taken place in Africa. Of the 8 billion barrels of new oil reserves discovered in 2001, 7 billion were found there.
Since 1990, the petroleum industry has invested more than $20 billion in exploration and production activity in Africa. $50 billion more will be spent between now and the end of the decade, the largest investment in the continent’s history – and around 1/3 of it will come from the U.S.
Three of the world’s largest oil companies – the British-Dutch consortium Shell, France’s Total, and America’s Chevron – are spending 15 percent, 30 percent, and 35 percent respectively of their global exploration and production budgets in Africa. Chevron alone is in the process of rolling out $20 billion in African projects over a five-year period.
Chevron alone is in the process of rolling out $20 billion in African projects over a five-year period.
Early on in the Bush Administration, Vice President Dick Cheney put together an energy task force predicting that Africa would soon become one of the fastest-growing sources of oil for the U.S.
Industry estimates suggest West African oil and gas will supply 25% of U.S. energy by 2015
Ghazvinian writes: “Lawmakers are getting excited about the possibility of shifting some of our oil dependence from the Middle East to Africa. A former senior official charged with African affairs recalls Kansas Senator Sam Brownback rushing up to him one afternoon in October 2002, positive glowing with excitement. “What do you think about bases in Africa? Wouldn’t that be great?””
Your Call airs from 10:00-11:00 am PST on KALW 91.7 FM. You can listen online and/or sign up for the podcast here.
Here’s what’s coming up:
Tuesday – Why is rape and sexual violence still a silent issue? And what can men do to prevent it?
Guests from San Francisco Women Against Rape and Men Can Stop Rape
Wednesday – Why do good people torture? What happens to people who torture?
Guests: Philip Zimbardo, author of The Lucifer Effect – In a study he conducted in 1971, Stanford college students were randomly assigned to play the role of guard or inmate for two weeks in a simulated prison, yet the guards quickly became so brutal that the experiment had to be shut down after only six days.
Tony Lagouranis, self-described former torturer at Abu Ghraib
Thursday – What’s it going to take to end the genocide in Darfur?
Global Days for Darfur – Events from April 23-30
Friday – How did the media cover the week’s news?
