The United States, which consumes about 25 percent of oil produced in the world, receives about 15 percent of its crude imports from Africa. As Washington prepares to go to war to extend U.S. imperialist control over the Mideast and its vast oil resources, it is also pressing for more African oil. "Energy from Africa plays an increasingly important role in our energy security," said U.S. energy secretary Abraham Spencer to the House International Relations Committee in June.

The owners of the imperialist oil monopolies--especially the U.S. oil giants--influence global oil prices more than anyone else. They not only own and operate their own massive oilfields, but dominate refining capacities, transportation, and distribution of oil.

Seeking deeper U.S. economic penetration of Africa’s oil-producing countries, Secretary of State Colin Powell toured three countries in early September, including Angola and Gabon, both of which are major oil exporters to the United States. He also traveled to Cape Verde islands off the coast of West Africa, where it is estimated that recently discovered offshore reserves will enable the region to produce more oil than that drilled out of the North Sea. The State Department has announced plans to reopen a consulate in Equatorial Guinea, where U.S. oil companies have been expanding their operations.

U.S. president Bush has said that he plans to travel to Africa early next year, with a possible stop in Nigeria, the fifth-largest oil exporter to the United States and the biggest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa. According to the Petroleum Finance Company, Nigeria is expected to increase its daily oil production from 2.2 million to more than 3 million barrels by 2007.  
 
Oil pipeline from Chad to the Atlantic
Washington has pressed the Nigerian government and other oil-producing states in Africa to increase their output. Angola is expected to double its daily oil production to nearly 2 million barrels, while Equatorial Guinea is projected to raise its daily total by to a similar extent to almost 350,000 barrels by 2005.

Some 225,000 barrels a day will be pumped from oilfields in Chad once construction of a $3.7 billion pipeline through Cameroon to the Atlantic Coast is completed in 2004. Two U.S. oil giants, ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco, along with Petronas of Malaysia, began building the pipeline in this former French colony last year. Oil, discovered in Chad in 1973, is becoming the country’s largest source of export earnings and will also ensure handsome profits for the U.S.-led oil consortium.

To protect U.S. oil interests, officials in Congress and the Pentagon have held discussions on stepping up military exchanges with West African countries and on possibly establishing a military base on Sao Tome or elsewhere in the region.

Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), to which Washington has sent hundreds of troops under the guise of protecting U.S. citizens, has potentially large reserves of oil and natural gas off its coast (see accompanying article).

The potential for military confrontation with workers and peasants is increased with rising expectations among toilers for economic development from the oil wealth. Some 80 percent of Chad’s 8.4 million people live on less than $1 a day and similar conditions exist in Cameroon.

The pipeline construction was touted as a source of employment for workers in Chad and Cameroon, but most will be laid off when it is completed next year. Africans who got hired labored under harsh conditions and received low wages.

Many peasants in Cameroon are angry because they were forced off their land to make way for construction of the pipeline and were offered meager compensation. The $225 payment for each mango tree chopped down was paltry compared with income over years from fruit production, said Narcisse Savah, a leader in the village of Mpango, Cameroon. "We have asked for the construction of a classroom and other small things," he said. "At the moment we have nothing." With the oil companies providing no compensation for environmental damage caused by the pipeline and few job opportunities, workers have organized protests, including strikes.

In mid-September, outside the village of Mpango, Cameroon, 20 young men blocked access to the new oil pipeline from Chad. They said the pipeline project "has failed to bring the social benefits they had expected," the Financial Times reported September 11.

"Before we had confidence," said Victor Ayessi, one of the protesters, who said he is unemployed and had hoped for a job on the pipeline. "Now we find our confidence has been abused."

In neighboring Nigeria oil workers organized a two-day strike on September 23 to protest government plans to sell off the four refineries of the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation to private investors, which they insist would raise gas prices and eliminate jobs.

The oil workers’ strike followed a series of actions by hundreds of women at oil facilities of ChevronTexaco and Shell in July and August. Toxic spills from the companies have destroyed farm land and crops and killed aquatic life.

"I don’t know how [ChevronTexaco] can allow other human beings to live like this," said one of the protesters. "Why do they treat us like animals?" The women demanded the companies provide jobs, build schools, clinics, a town hall, electricity and water systems, and clean up pollution from oil spills.  
 
 
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