Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Delta Blues - Part 2
As we sit in our heated homes and live in our television and multimedia worlds where every politician in Washington D.C. decries the terrorist movement of Al Qaeda, we turn a blind eye to the deleterious effects of our consumption of petroleum and all of its byproducts. In Nigeria, Western oil corporations have developed such an awful reputation with the local people as to be the source of repeated "terrorist"-style attacks and kidnappings.
One main seat of conflict is the aforementioned Niger Delta. In a region coincidentally called the Oil Rivers due to its once-prolific production of palm oil, multinational oil companies drill oil well-after-oil well in search of the precious petroleum. While the region accounts for only 7.5% of Nigeria's total land mass, it generates close to 75% of the country's total export revenues due to the 2 million barrels per day of oil that is extracted.
The people of the Niger Delta, some 20 million of them, have lived in the region for countless generations, subsisting primarily on an agrarian culture of fishing and farming the lush delta region. Despite this relatively basic lifestyle, they have endured consistent stress from the oil industry.
In addition to the obtrusive presence of drilling rigs and the steady buzz of tanker ships and workers going to and from the platforms, the oil industry is a massive polluter in the area, and without enforcement of environmental laws nor strict oversight of the industry, the pollution goes on despite its clear harm to the local people. Add to this the insult upon injury of the fact that the Nigerian government has been reluctant, putting it mildly, to share the revenues of the oil production from the region with the local population, and you have a toxic stew guaranteed to engender a less-than-healthy relationship. In fact, the destitution in the area combined with the fact that they are literally sitting on the world's most valuable substance has resulted in a deadly tinder-box that is ready to combust at an moment -- much like the pipelines that run through Lagos.
It is little wonder that people in the region, an eclectic mix of some 40 ethnic groups speaking around 250 languages, have taken matters into their own hands. In the last decade, groups have formed to bring the situation to light both in Nigeria and around the world. Within the last few years one such group has vaulted into public eye, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, or MEND.
MEND's tactics have a distinctive terrorist bent, including the sensational swarming oil production facilities with gunmen, the abduction of multinational oil workers, and the strategic targeting of certain facilities to interrupt the flow of oil. While these tactics are designed to play on the terrorism mentality that we have become accustomed to in the Western society, the simple fact of the matter is that the people have truly suffered, and as is the case with most types of "economic colonialism," the situation is largely avoidable.
Putting aside this inflammatory situation for a minute, one cannot help but wonder what is around the corner as the world enters a new phase of oil-flavored geopolitics. Like everywhere in the world, Nigeria's oil reserves are neither permanent nor renewable resources. Depending on which source you read, the proven reserves of Nigeria's oil wealth is either 16 or 17 billion barrels or 35.3 billion barrels. While that sounds like an incredible amount of oil, one has to simply crunch some basic numbers to realize that this is an impermanent situation.
At the current rate of extraction (2.2 million barrels per day), one can calculate the amount of time Nigeria's oil producers have to do their thing. At the highest estimate of oil reserves (35.3 billion barrels) divided by the 2.2 million barrels per day, one can determine quite easily that there is only around 16,000 days of oil production remaining at that production rate, or approximately 44 years' worth -- and, again, that is without figuring into the mix the greatly increasing demand for the fuel worldwide or the economics of the oil economy. Using the United States Energy Information Administration's significantly lower estimate of 16 billion barrels of oil, we find that Nigeria's oil supply shrinks to under 20 years' worth.
While the government of Nigeria and the multinational oil corporations have made the situation for the people of Nigeria and the Niger Delta untenable and even deadly, the fact of the matter is that without proper foresight Nigeria's whole economy will completely collapse without oil revenue.
One main seat of conflict is the aforementioned Niger Delta. In a region coincidentally called the Oil Rivers due to its once-prolific production of palm oil, multinational oil companies drill oil well-after-oil well in search of the precious petroleum. While the region accounts for only 7.5% of Nigeria's total land mass, it generates close to 75% of the country's total export revenues due to the 2 million barrels per day of oil that is extracted.
The people of the Niger Delta, some 20 million of them, have lived in the region for countless generations, subsisting primarily on an agrarian culture of fishing and farming the lush delta region. Despite this relatively basic lifestyle, they have endured consistent stress from the oil industry.
In addition to the obtrusive presence of drilling rigs and the steady buzz of tanker ships and workers going to and from the platforms, the oil industry is a massive polluter in the area, and without enforcement of environmental laws nor strict oversight of the industry, the pollution goes on despite its clear harm to the local people. Add to this the insult upon injury of the fact that the Nigerian government has been reluctant, putting it mildly, to share the revenues of the oil production from the region with the local population, and you have a toxic stew guaranteed to engender a less-than-healthy relationship. In fact, the destitution in the area combined with the fact that they are literally sitting on the world's most valuable substance has resulted in a deadly tinder-box that is ready to combust at an moment -- much like the pipelines that run through Lagos.
It is little wonder that people in the region, an eclectic mix of some 40 ethnic groups speaking around 250 languages, have taken matters into their own hands. In the last decade, groups have formed to bring the situation to light both in Nigeria and around the world. Within the last few years one such group has vaulted into public eye, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, or MEND.
MEND's tactics have a distinctive terrorist bent, including the sensational swarming oil production facilities with gunmen, the abduction of multinational oil workers, and the strategic targeting of certain facilities to interrupt the flow of oil. While these tactics are designed to play on the terrorism mentality that we have become accustomed to in the Western society, the simple fact of the matter is that the people have truly suffered, and as is the case with most types of "economic colonialism," the situation is largely avoidable.
Putting aside this inflammatory situation for a minute, one cannot help but wonder what is around the corner as the world enters a new phase of oil-flavored geopolitics. Like everywhere in the world, Nigeria's oil reserves are neither permanent nor renewable resources. Depending on which source you read, the proven reserves of Nigeria's oil wealth is either 16 or 17 billion barrels or 35.3 billion barrels. While that sounds like an incredible amount of oil, one has to simply crunch some basic numbers to realize that this is an impermanent situation.
At the current rate of extraction (2.2 million barrels per day), one can calculate the amount of time Nigeria's oil producers have to do their thing. At the highest estimate of oil reserves (35.3 billion barrels) divided by the 2.2 million barrels per day, one can determine quite easily that there is only around 16,000 days of oil production remaining at that production rate, or approximately 44 years' worth -- and, again, that is without figuring into the mix the greatly increasing demand for the fuel worldwide or the economics of the oil economy. Using the United States Energy Information Administration's significantly lower estimate of 16 billion barrels of oil, we find that Nigeria's oil supply shrinks to under 20 years' worth.
While the government of Nigeria and the multinational oil corporations have made the situation for the people of Nigeria and the Niger Delta untenable and even deadly, the fact of the matter is that without proper foresight Nigeria's whole economy will completely collapse without oil revenue.
