Introduction

A host of West African properties is now sold. On the auction block was Chad, Cameroon, Sao Tome & Principe, Gabon, Nigeria and Angola who with Equatorial Guinea will soon reach oil output of five million barrels per day. It's a modest share compared to production estimates for Russia and Saudi Arabia. Even Venezuela has that much to offer. But the Americans aren't shopping to replace suppliers, just to boost capacity in their favour to offset price controls from abroad. So when a coterie of small African producers promised to deliver the goods like America's own spare capacity the bidding ...