allAfrica.com: Africa: A New Frontier - the Rush for Oil and Gas in East Africa - 0 views
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africa oil gas petroleum industry development international extractive transparency curse resource
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Just a few miles from Rukwanzi six Congolese were killed in September 2007, shot at by the Ugandan army while they travelled in a passenger ferry from the island to the DRC shore. It was revealed last week that Heritage Oil and Gas, the British wildcat explorer founded by former mercenary Tony Buckingham, played a key role in triggering that military operation after its staff had crossed illegally into Congolese waters.
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The reckless actions of a British oil company could conceivably have led to war. That it did not reflects Congolese weakness and Ugandan calculation. There were fears in Kinshasa at the time that Jean-Pierre Bemba was likely to return from Belgium with Ugandan support. Laurent Nkunda's CNDP was engaged in its strongest offensive to date in North Kivu and the old Ugandan interventionist tendency was increasingly on show.
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Now the oil majors are entering the market, they are using a different argument - that the wider regional choice means they must be incentivised to invest in one country over another. When China National Offshore Oil Corporation (Cnooc) struck a deal with Tullow to develop Uganda's fields, it warned Museveni that there wasn't time to wait for Parliamentary debates over the issue - pausing now could mean Uganda losing its winning lottery ticket to Kenya or Ethiopia.
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A lot has changed since the tragic events of 2007. The oil and gas rush is now a regional phenomenon. Amidst all the excitement of deal-making and discovery, it may prove to have political and economic effects that few are predicting today.