US interest in African basing runs parallel to Gulf of Guinea oil exploration
Evidence
The sudden interest in one of the smallest and poorest countries in the world stems from the petroleum found beneath the Gulf of Guinea and elsewhere in West Africa. Since the turn of the century, the region has become an increasingly important source of global energy supplies, and it may have even larger undiscovered reserves. Several U.S. companies, including ExxonMobil and Noble Energy, have won oil exploration concessions in the Gulf. Although recent U.S. oil production has caused a drop in imports from West Africa, a few years ago, the Council on Foreign Relations was suggesting that sub-Saharan Africa was “likely to become as important a source of U.S. energy imports as the Middle East.” — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 1003
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
Related
- West African oil reserves drive the US push for African military bases (similarity 0.94)
- Gulf of Guinea oil drives sudden U.S. military interest in São Tomé (similarity 0.92)
- US military base construction was driven partly by oil interests in Saudi Arabia. (similarity 0.78)