The Militancy Threat

4 Aug 2009

Militants and separatists – not international terrorists – are the most pressing security risk to oil and gas infrastructure across sub-Saharan Africa.

Al Qaida’s North African (AQIM) cell announced in June that it had killed a British hostage, Edwin Dyer, whom it had been holding since January. AQIM said it killed Dyer after the deadline set for the release of Abu Qatada, a Jordanian cleric, held in Britain since 2005 on terrorism charges had expired.

Dyer was seized in January, with a Swiss couple and German couple, as the group traveled from a festival of nomadic culture in Mali toward the Niger border.  

Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb began in Algeria as an insurrection against the country’s secular military rulers. It has since expanded and aligned itself with the broader al-Qaida terrorist network, claiming responsibility for suicide bombings in Algeria last year and the kidnapping of two Austrian tourists in Tunisia, who were later freed in Mali. In 2003, the group's predecessor, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, captured 32 European tourists and held them for a ransom of 10 million dollars. All the hostages were freed.  

While international terrorism receives much media attention and targets innocent civilians to inculcate fear and thwart government accountability, it is actually a different threat – that of militancy – that poses the main security risk to oil and gas infrastructure in sub-Saharan Africa. Militants have a specific cause, for which they engage in armed aggression against an existing government. As such, the threat is less existential, more specific.

To shed light on this phenomenon, this article maps recent incidents of militant action directed at global energy supplies, assesses their causes, their impact on global energy supplies, and provides some suggestions on how to mitigate the risks and create remedies.  

Mapping attacks

Considering the expanding oil frontiers in sub-Saharan Africa, the number of attacks on oil infrastructure by militants on a regular basis has been limited to two locations, the Niger Delta and Sudan during the civil war.

However, attacks on oil infrastructure are expanding offshore, with militants diversifying into piracy to make additional money. In Somalia, for example, piracy is indiscriminate, with cruise ships, fishing boats, yachts and Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCC) targeted. There were more than 100 reported pirate attacks in the busy shipping lanes off eastern and northern Somalia in 2008.

The danger and cost of piracy (insurance premiums have risen tenfold for the Gulf of Aden) mean that some shipping has been diverted around the Cape of Good Hope.

The Somali pirate hijacking off the Kenyan coast of the Saudi super tanker, Sirius Star, carrying two million barrels of oil and a 25-member crew in November 2008, highlights the risks for the oil industry. It was released by pirates after a three million dollar ransom was paid. A small plane was photographed dropping the ransom by parachute onto the tanker.

This vessel is the biggest tanker ever to be hijacked. Piracy could cause a major environmental disaster in the Gulf of Aden or Indian Ocean if a tanker sunk, ran aground or was set on fire. The use of ever-more powerful weaponry raises the risks.  

A rough neighborhood

The Horn of Africa is a rough neighborhood. Canada’s Africa Oil Corp’s efforts to prospect for oil in the self-governing Puntland province of northwestern Somalia have encountered regular problems, including a May 2008 attack of its assets by unidentified militiamen. In Sanaag in early 2006 there had already been fierce fighting between clan militia opposed to the exploration and Puntland security forces. The violence forced Africa Oil’s joint venture partner, the Australian mining firm Range Resources, to suspend operations in Puntland.  

In April 2007, gunmen raided a Chinese-run oilfield in Ethiopia near the Somali border, killing 65 Ethiopians and nine Chinese workers of the Zhongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau. The Ogaden National Liberation Front said in a external pagestatementthat they had launched “military operations against units of the Ethiopian armed forces guarding an oil exploration site." The rebel group has been fighting a low-level insurgency with the aim of creating an independent state for ethnic Somalis and had warned in 2005 that any investment in the Ogaden area that also benefited the Ethiopian government “would not be tolerated.”  

Sudan – north-south rivalry

Sudan is one of Africa’s major oil producers. Since its independence in 1955, the Sudan has experienced conflict for all but 11 years as a result of economic and political inequalities fueled by the divisions between the dominant Arab-Muslim population to the north and a non-Arab, mostly Christian population to the south. Temporary peace in the 1970s, allowed oil development and exploration to commence, but was followed by a resumption of hostilities in 1983 that quickly halted production. The civil war resulted in the suspension of oil development until 1997, when temporary peace was achieved. However, conflict resumed and the energy sector became a target for the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), the main rebel group based in the south that fought the government until 2005.  

Compared with the campaign of violence in Nigeria discussed below, attacks on Sudanese energy infrastructure were modest, primarily due to a concerted effort to protect facilities in the conflict zone. But while armed groups were not able to cause major disruptions, they have managed to limit exploration and development through a sustained campaign to destabilize the oil-producing southern region.

Today, the Sudan is once again attempting to maintain peace through the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of January 2005. But the oil industry is still vulnerable, demonstrated in an October 2008 attack when Darfur rebels abducted nine Chinese workers at an oil field operated by the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company near Abyei in the southern Sudan. The rebels accused China of indirectly helping the central government fund military operations with oil revenues and demanded a share in the oil wealth. Oil resources will continue to be a major issue in this region and if the CPA unravels and violent conflict resumes, the prospects for developing oil production and exports from the south are likely to be postponed again.  

The discovery of oil, while not the root cause of war in the Sudan, added another dimension to the conflict of a volatile region that is torn over economic resource distribution. The oil region lies in the coveted territory dividing the north and south of the country. The Abeyi region has been a particular flashpoint, and a ruling by judges at the Hague’s Permanent Court of Arbitration on 22 July 2009 gives the north control of an oilfield. The north declared a victory, while the south said it was satisfied. The ruling has reduced the size of the region, putting the Heglig oilfield outside of Abyei – where most of the population is said to be loyal to the south.  

Angola’s Cabinda province

Much of Angola’s oil production is offshore. During Angola’s civil war, only the onshore installations at Soyo were impacted in the early 1990s by UNITA attacks. There has been a long-lasting low intensity conflict in Angola’s oil rich enclave of Cabinda since the late 1970s. This has resulted in irregular attacks on the Malongo oil compound and has included the abduction of oil workers – most memorably US national Brent Swan, taken in the early 1990s by FLEC-Renovada. Today only FLEC-FAC of Nzita Tiago remains active, and efforts to start onshore oil exploration in Cabinda North have been halted. In early March 2008, FLEC claimed responsibility for an attack that led to the death of a Geokenetics employee.  

The Niger Delta

Nigeria’s crude oil production hovers today around 1.7 million barrels per dollar (b/d) because it is impacted by regular attacks on oil pipelines and infrastructure by militants in the Niger Delta. More than 400,000 b/d of oil production by Shell, Chevron and ENI have been shut-down following increased militant attacks since 2006 when the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) and other militant groups intensified their efforts.

In addition up to 100,000 more b/pd can be diverted and smuggled by local militias through oil theft or bunkering – 'blood oil,' as it is called by President Yar’Adua. Armed groups have grown in size, range and armaments. They have also abducted dozens of foreign oil company personnel and Nigerians, securing large ransoms from international firms. Organized crime groups emanating from the Delta have diversified into piracy and expanded into the Gulf of Guinea, illustrated by attacks in Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Bata and in February 2009, the presidential palace in Malabo.

President Umaru Yar’Adua offered an amnesty to the militant groups on 25 June 2009. Militants have until 4 October to renounce violence and lay down their arms. Following the release of rebel leader Henry Okah, MEND announced a 60-day ceasefire and that it would put together its own negotiating team. The international oil markets remain cautious, not expecting any short-term increases in Nigerian oil exports.  

Conclusions

With lower oil prices, oil exploration and production efforts in Africa are slowing down and host governments are feeling the impact of the global economic downturn. This could provide an opportunity in Sudan and Nigeria to encourage dialogue, and the upcoming peace talks on the Niger Delta and acceptance of the ruling on Abyei are positive steps. One important step is to encourage formal dialogue in Nigeria, but efforts to reduce illicit financial and arms flows and networks, through technical assistance and multilateral anti-corruption measures are also necessary.

The situation in Sudan is alarming; elections will likely be held in 2010 and a referendum will take place in 2011 to determine whether the south secedes from the Khartoum under the terms of the CPA. Despite the Abeyi ruling the outlook is worrisome, and international diplomacy is essential to avoiding a return to sustained conflict of what was Africa’s longest civil war.

All these conflicts require lasting political solutions if the oil industry is to prosper. Somalia and Nigeria show that the oil industry’s offshore assets are not immune from attack and that militants have been diversifying into piracy to generate additional funds.

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