With Mideast uncertainty, US turns to Africa for oil

The US should encourage African governments to spend their petro-dollars wisely, broaden their economic base, and ensure that ordinary people share in the benefits, Mr. Wihbey says. "If we don't do that, we're going to hurt our long-term security interests. It's not just a question of morality, it's also good business."

Hayman says one simple step would go a long way toward ensuring that leaders don't waste or misappropriate oil revenues: Companies should declare what they pay in royalties and taxes to each government, something they're already required to do in the West.

"If the companies were clear and transparent in revealing what payments were made to government, it would enable the ordinary citizens of those countries to hold their government accountable," he says.

So far, African oil-producing states have a dismal record on measures of democracy and human rights. A revolving door of corrupt civilian leaders or military dictators ruled Nigeria for most of the past three decades, and oil companies were accused of complicity in massive human rights violations and environmental destruction in the Niger Delta. A brutal civil war plagued Angola from its independence in 1975, and its government officials stand accused of diverting oil revenues from state coffers. In Gabon, President Omar Bongo has clung to power since 1967.

According to the CIA, Equatorial Guinea, where big oil deposits have more than doubled the country's gross national product in three years, is "ruled by ruthless leaders who have badly mismanaged the economy." President Teodoro Obiang Nguemo came to power in a military coup in 1979, and won a Soviet-style 99 percent of the vote in 1996 during an election sharply criticized by foreign observers. Washington is prepared to reopen its Embassy there, which was closed by the Clinton administration.

The spread of West Africa's oil boom began when more countries opened their markets with the end of the Cold War, and it picked up pace with technological advances that now allow drilling in seas as deep as 8,000 feet. The region also has the geographic advantage of being closer to the US than the Middle East.

Industry lobbyists have only increased their calls for the US to diversify its oil sources in the wake of Sept. 11. They argue that because West African oil is divided up among several countries without historic links to each other, they're unlikely to unify in forming an embargo, or to suffer political problems all at once.

Next year, landlocked Chad is set to start pumping as much as 250,000 barrels a day through a 660-mile pipeline from the southwest part of the country across Cameroon to the sea.

Sudan, which only three years ago imported all of its oil needs, controversially extracts 186,000 barrels of oil a day with the help of Canadian, Chinese, and Malaysian companies from the southern part of the country, where a civil war rages.

American companies are currently prohibited from doing business in Sudan because of sanctions, though relations have warmed since Sept. 11 because of Sudan's help in the war on terrorism. Last week, special envoy John Danforth, the former Missouri senator, noted in his report to President Bush: "International oil companies and foreign investors capable of making the investment needed to realize Sudan's oil potential are more likely to venture into Sudan if there is peace and political stability than in current circumstances."

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