EQUIPO NIZKOR |
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14Jul04
U.S. military talks to Nigeria over Gulf of Guinea.
A top U.S. general has held talks with Nigerian military chiefs on security in West Africa's Gulf of Guinea, set to become one of the world's top oil supply hubs within a decade, officials said Tuesday.
The world's largest energy consumer is keen to protect a series of huge oil discoveries in the gulf, controlled by several politically unstable states including Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Sao Tome, and Angola.
"We talked over lunch about having a way we could cooperate together in monitoring the waters of the Gulf of Guinea," said Gen. Charles Wald, deputy commander of U.S. European Command, which also covers Africa.
"Terrorism is an international problem and a threat to all peace-loving and democratic countries, so we share a common interest to tackle the problem," he was quoted as saying by a U.S. embassy official. "They have been to the U.S., Russia, Europe, and the Middle East. They could certainly come here."
Wald met Nigeria's top military chiefs and officials of the West African regional block ECOWAS Monday.
Although its reserves are dwarfed by those of the Middle East, the Gulf of Guinea is geographically better placed to supply the U.S. market. And unlike much of the Middle East, West Africa is also open to foreign investment.
The Gulf of Guinea contains an estimated 15 billion barrels of oil in deep water, and analysts see western oil companies including ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch/Shell, ChevronTexaco, BP, and Total spending about $60 billion over the next decade to exploit them.
Nigeria and Sao Tome have a history of military coups and coup plots, while Angola fought a bloody civil war for 27 years. Equatorial Guinea said it foiled an attempted coup by foreign mercenaries earlier this year.
Nigeria, already Africa's top oil producer and fifth biggest supplier to the United States, has the largest and best organized military in the West African region, but its navy is weak and underfunded. Over the past two years it has taken delivery of four second-hand U.S. Coast Guard cutters, with which it plans to crack down on rampant theft of its oil by criminal syndicates.
"I think it should be an issue of great importance to Nigeria as well as other countries bordering the Gulf of Guinea to have a common interest to protect the area. We will firmly support the leaders to protect the Gulf of Guinea," Wald said.
The U.S. European Command announced in March a major reorganization that would see its troops address a broader spectrum of security threats across Europe and Africa, replacing a Cold War stance directed mostly at the former Soviet Union.
[Source: Reuters, Abuja, Nigeria, 14Jul04]
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