Heaven Skyy

Crude World: the Violent Twilight of Oil

 The thought that our world may currently be at peak oil production is an idea widely debated. Irrespective of political and social belief systems, mathematically and pragmatically, a time of peak oil will certainly happen. Known quantities of existing mineral deposits are considered national secrets to oil producing countries, so accurate estimates have not been readily availed. Hard data on remaining oil reserves are elusive, and the speculators can only proffer an educated guess on what is left.

While the US imports more oil from Canada than any other nation in the world, implying a sense of security due to friendly relations, Maass does not see the Alberta tar sands as a viable solution to impending oil shortages. Further, these Alberta hydrocarbon extraction programmes are considered an environmental disaster. Nor do Venezuelan deposits of heavy oil appear likely to succour the ache of exerted supergiant oil fields in the Gulf nations. It’s running out. Saudi Arabia, with twenty-one per cent of the world’s known oil reserves, may have sufficient quantities to last several more generations, but problems related to shortages will start long before the last few drops of petroleum are extracted from the Arabian Peninsula.

Exploration and extraction rights in developing nations are what China and the rest of us are fighting each other for. Maass, like other writers on Sino-African relations, lauds the Chinese for their direct foreign investment in African states that possess coveted mineral deposits. The Chinese are methodically building a desperately needed infrastructure in Africa: paving roads, building railways, and constructing pipelines—and this, in the thousands of miles. While the Chinese motivation here may not be altruistic, foreign direct development is tangible aid where needed.

Maass explains why mineral extraction in poorly developed African nations does not help the local population. Aside from the storied African dictator stuffing his suitcases full of graft, bribes and outright theft, whisking cash out of a cash-starved country, there are other dynamics to mineral extraction that don’t benefit local populations.

Equatorial Guinea is a perfect example of mineral extraction giving nothing back. Marathon’s hydrocarbon operation there “may as well have been on the moon,” Maass writes when describing how everything, from South Asian labourers, to the pre-fabricated trailers the labourers lived-in, is imported. A cement factory was built on site, with the intention of dismantling that factory when the time came.

In Lagos, the director of Shell’s operation in Nigeria explains how the company operates its own fleet of passenger planes for shuttling employees around the country, since local carriers are unreliable. And Maass travels through the Nigerian Delta, where Shell and Halliburton rule the land, with a local warlord, to see for himself the contrast of the shanty towns across the river from the pristine Shell compound: he likens what he sees in shanty-town to a post-apocalyptic scenario, replete with burnt-out buildings, mutilated rebel soldiers, and prostitutes lurking in shacks. The entire area’s lush and lively flora and fauna are dying off from the contamination associated with the flaring system the operation uses to burn off toxic gasses released in the extraction process. This area could once have easily been a game reserve instead, for hippo-watchers, the author says.

Although this author has spoken with geologists, hydrocarbon engineers, programme directors, Big Oil executives and government officials on these ideas, and he certainly scores points with his boots-on-the-ground approach to researching the reality of petroleum extraction, there are a few things he seems to either disregard or over-look.

For example, Maass does not say much about the mysterious and complicated Sudan, a country which, now has the fastest-growing economy in Africa, thanks to petrodollars and direct foreign investment. He merely makes a few already known references to China’s presence in the Sudan, the Darfur problem, and bin Laden’s tenure in that land. And there is much more to be said about the Sudan.

Also, Maass spent time in Equatorial Guinea, exploring the local version of abject poverty, and annoying high-ranking government officials to the point of inspiring his own expulsion from that country. But he makes no mention of the 2004 coup attempt there, which had UK fingerprints all over it. Former SAS officer, Simon Mann, co-founder of Sandline International, the nefarious mercenary outfit, is today in Equatorial Guinea’s equally nefarious Black Beach prison, serving a 34-year sentence for his role in that failed coup attempt. And Mr. Mann is now naming names.

But this book is not just about oil in Africa. This book, and its author, go across the globe to explore the manifold results of petroleum extraction and the dynamics of those results on economies, governments, multi-nationals and individuals. All in all an informative read.

Tagged: book review, crude world