Here's a brain teaser: if you had to pick sides in a fight between one of the world's most corrupt governments and two giant oil companies, who would you support? What a lovely choice.
The leader of Chad wants to toss Chevron and Petronas out the country so the government can run its own oil business. How convenient. You let the companies invest the money in actually building the plants and developing the oil fields, then you kindly ask them to leave so you can run the business. (Of course, the companies didn't provide charity work there; they made excellent profits.) Can this plan work if nobody in the government knows how to run an oilfield? And how about the fact that the 99% of Chadians are dirt poor, haven't seen any benefit from the oil revenue and aren't likely to see any benefit from those revenues going directly to the government?
Add a third element. Chad established diplomatic ties with China recently, and it is believed that the Chinese will come in and assist the government with its oil business. This is how the world is going to work from now on. While the US and Europe are occupied with wars and the Middle East, the Chinese quietly lock up all kinds of energy deals, build alliances and secure their supplies. Eventually they will control the markets.
Sigh. I'm not really looking forward to living in a hut.
No comments:
Post a Comment