Nigeria, once again in chaos in its oil industry. Blame the Avengers..

Once again, Nigeria, which was from a long time ago Africa's top oil producer and exporter, is descending into chaos, but this time add to the already problematic scene of religious extremist violence of BOKO HARAM, the coming back of the once called MEND now turbocharged and more arrogant and intransigent than ever "The Avengers" (sounds more like a movie, unfortunately it is not), and has brought a renewed wave of violence and repeated attacks against the most important oil and gas facilities targeting this time especially the ones operated by EXXON and also ENI has been victim of these recent attacks, which has caused a tremendous plunge in nigerian overall oil production, which according to recent data from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, in march descended in less than 2 MMBD, to 1.8 MMBD, which could be found in this report: Nigeria oil production plunged to 1.8 MMBD in March 2016. This definitely shows how impacted the nigerian oil industry has been because of these recent surge in attacks from the Avengers. 

These renewed attacks come presumably as a direct consequence of diverse and consecutive measures taken by President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, aimed in general to wash away corruption that has been plaguing Nigeria's oil industry and its state oil company, which is now under restructure process, and also as a consequence of a direct measure taken by Mr Buhari to end contracts to protect oil and gas facilities held by the previous government with militant rebel commanders and cut also payments and stipends to former commanders to avoid any future uprising like the one happening now, which looks like to be more violent and non receding any time soon, after in recent days, the Avenger top officials announced that it was not going to participate in any talks or deals with the government, until its demands were not complied nor dealt with, which in general relate to more oil revenues from the Delta Niger operations and more autonomy for the region, which hardly the Buhari government would abide for these demands, having also the cooperation of the international community by his side to combat and fight the BOKO HARAM and also it would be the possibility to request help to fight against The Avengers.

All these events in Nigeria have caused an important spike in oil prices levels, which in recent days reached new record highs of 50$ in the Brent benchmark, which along with recent outages in Canada due to severe wildfires, show that what happens with the nigerian oil industry it really means something for the world oil market, especially when one knows that the quality of their crude oils are between the best, very much needed and imported by the US, and which unfortunately is running the risk to be totally overtaken by Angola, now ranked as the african top oil producer and exporter to the western markets and also an important supplier to China. Maybe Angola which overcame and experienced a long civil war and insurgency clashes and currently with a flowing and thriving oil industry could teach some lessons and help Nigeria's government to deal with this important troublesome situation. 

And there is two crucial issues to discern or think about in the days and weeks to come, depending on how this situation evolve and if the government of Mr Buhari gets finally a talk with the Avengers, which relate to first of all, the behaviour of the rest of the OPEC members regarding the current situation in Nigeria and its huge energy security problem, since particularly thinking, its not enough to vote for a nigerian to be secretary general of the organisation, Mr Sanusi Berkindo, which could be seen as a consolation prize, but how nigerian lost oil production will be filled? Will there be true solidarity inside the OPEC with its troubled member? It might be a silly and naive question, but it is important to see this issue as well. Or on the contrary, with all this market share craziness and the law of the jungle existing as a rule of law in the bloc, other countries like Angola and the KSA will run to fill nigerian void. And most important of all, if oil production keeps this low, will Mr Buhari request to be out the OPEC similar to the Indonesia case in the past. Only time will tell, and well, of course, based on much of what the Avengers and the Nigerian government do to prevent Nigeria from becoming a net oil importer after being the 1 Africa's oil producer. And also, is there any foreign player benefiting from all this situation? Maybe the private security organisations hired by EXXON, CHEVRON? One could never know for real...

Myanmar and Oil

Sincerely, I am surprised by the impressive quantum leap Myanmar has been given on the news, leasding the rankings in economic growth in Southeast Asia and due to its important natural gas reserves off shore,it has been opening up to the world and poised to be a game changer in world oil geopolitics, and a prize to take between India, China, United States, in terms of which country can have the most important and the biggest shares of their oil blocks and revenues. China, apparently has taken the lead on this regard, being a close partner since the darkest times of the Junta, and still close to it, but now India also is watching close how events play out and pouring huge investments in the oil and gas sector, being Indians very interested in this country. 

But for Washington this will be hard to take and measure and evaluate, since it has got to know and have the wisdom to calibrate its own national interests, and the relationships between Beijing and Delhi and overall how this play out in the geopolitical puzzle of the region. And also, there´s Australia as well, as one of the most important energy players in the pacific region, which could serve well as the bargaining chip between all interested players towards Myanmar energy riches. 

Not to forget that according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates the country, also known as Burma, had 10 trillion cubic feet of proven reserves and produced 421 billion cubic feet of the fuel The reserves are 1.9 percent of known deposits in the Asia Pacific, according to the EIA. So this is why Myanmar could have bigger geopolitical implications for the region than ever thought, now even more so when the issue about the South China Sea between China and Washington is surfacing again, and which holds huge and massive hydrocarbon reserves.