NEW YORK -- Since the mid-1990s, several countries in sub-Saharan Africa -- Nigeria, Angola, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea -- have experienced strong revenue growth from the petroleum industry. In most cases, this new wealth is not being directed toward the countries' economic development or toward improved living standards for citizens. Rather, it has been used almost exclusively to enrich the countries' leaders. As a consequence, most of the population remains poor and unprotected.
With more than 4 million barrels of oil produced daily, sub-Saharan Africa's production surpasses that of Iran, Venezuela and Mexico put together, and the region has the potential to become as important a crude-oil resource as Russia or the Caspian Sea. The area has the additional advantage of being more politically stable than the Middle East, at least at this time.
According to estimates from the National Intelligence Council in the United States, sub-Saharan Africa could fill up to 25 percent of U.S. fossil-fuel needs in 2015, compared to 16 percent now. In addition, the Gulf of Guinea, which extends from Nigeria to Angola, could become the first producer of deep-water offshore oil in the world.