Abstract
The likelihood of a continued depression of commodity prices globally will have a significant impact on the future of Africa’s oil and gas producing countries that remain dependent on energy export revenues to finance development. New discoveries of oil and gas across sub-Saharan Africa will result in an increasing number of countries becoming significant energy producers and exporters, and much of the new potential exists in various forms of unconventional energy, such as shale gas, coal-bed methane, oil sands and ultra-deepwater oil and gas. So far, however, African countries do not feature significantly in debates on the global expansion of unconventional fuel exploration and production. Therefore, this chapter examines how prospects for hydrocarbon exploration in sub-Saharan Africa have been affected by the recent crash and increased volatility in global oil prices.
And the seven years of plenteousness … were ended.
And the seven years of dearth began to come…
—Book of Genesis
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Addison, Velda. 2016. Sub-Saharan Africa Success Takes Backseat in Bearish World. E&P, Hart Energy, February 16. http://www.epmag.com/sub-saharan-africa-successes-take-backseat-bearish-world-838756.
Andreasson, Stefan. 2013. Elusive Agency: Africa’s Persistently Peripheral Role in International Relations. In Brown, African Agency in International Politics, ed. William Brown and Sophie Harman, 143–157. London: Routledge.
———. 2015. American and British Strategies in the Competition for Energy Resources in Sub-Saharan Africa. In A New Scramble for Africa: The Rush for Energy Resources in Sub-Saharan Africa, ed. Sören Scholvin, 13–31. Farnham: Ashgate.
Aguilera, Roberto F., and Marian Radetzki. 2014. The Shale Revolution: Global Gas and Oil Markets under Transformation. Mineral Economics 26 (3): 75–84.
Auping, Willem L., Erik Pruyt, Sijbren de Jong, and Jan H. Kwakkel. 2016. The Geopolitical Impact of the Shale Revolution: Exploring Consequences on Energy Prices and Rentier States. Energy Policy 98: 390–399.
Auty, Richard. 2002. Sustaining Development in Mineral Economies: The Resource Curse Thesis. London: Routledge.
Barry, John. 2012. The Politics of Actually Existing Unsustainability: Human Flourishing in a Climate-Changed, Carbon Constrained World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Baruya, Paul, and John Kessels. 2013. Coal Prospects in Botswana, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Namibia. IEA Clean Coal Centre. https://www.usea.org/sites/default/files/122013_Coal%20prospects%20in%20Botswana,%20Mozambique,%20Zambia,%20Zimbabwe%20and%20Namibia_ccc228.pdf.
Beaulier, Scott A., and J. Robert Subrick. 2006. The Political Foundations of Development: The Case of Botswana. Constitutional Political Economy 17 (2): 103–115.
Blackwill, Robert D., and Meghan L. O’Sullivan. 2014. America’s Energy Edge: The Geopolitical Consequences of the Shale Revolution. Foreign Affairs 93 (2): 102–114.
Blas, Javier. 2014. Victim of Shale Revolution, Nigeria Stops Exporting Oil to US. Financial Times, October 2. http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2014/10/02/victim-of-shale-revolution-nigeria-stops-exporting-oil-to-us/.
BMI Research. 2014. Ultra-Deepwater, Frontier and Oil Sands Most Vulnerable to Price Drop. http://www.bmiresearch.com/news-and-views/ultra-deepwater-frontier-and-oil-sands-most-vulnerable-to-price-drop.
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Ryan Decker, Aaron Flaaen, and Maria Tito. 2016. Unraveling the Oil Conundrum: Productivity Improvements and Cost Declines in the U.S. Shale Oil Industry. FEDS Notes 2016(1736). http://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/notes/feds-notes/2016/unraveling-the-oil-conundrum-productivity-improvements-and-cost-declines-in-the-us-shale-oil-industry-20160322.html.
Brown, David E. 2013. Africa’s Booming Oil and Natural Gas Exploration and Production: National Security Implications for the United States and China. Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute/U.S. Army War College Press.
Brune, Nancy E. 2015. The Impact of the US Shale Boom in Africa. Journal of International Affairs 69 (1): 101–120.
Butler, Nick. 2016. Why the Conventional Wisdom on Peak Oil Demand Is Wrong. Financial Times, November 28. https://www.ft.com/content/0f1be18d-13cf-3eef-85b5-c719fe490dbc.
Carmody, Padraig. 2013. The Rise of the BRICS in Africa: The Geopolitics of South-South Relations. London: Zed Books.
Collier, Paul. 2010. The Plundered Planet: Why We Must – and How We Can – Manage Nature for Global Prosperity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Deaton, Angus. 1999. Commodity Prices and Growth in Africa. The Journal of Economic Perspectives 13 (3): 23–40.
Gann, L.H., and Peter Duignan. 1975. Colonialism in Africa 1870–1960. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gochberg, William, and Victor Menaldo. 2016. The Resource Curse Puzzle Across Four Waves of Work. In The Palgrave Handbook of the International Political Economy of Energy, ed. Thijs, Van de Graaf, et al., 505–525. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Grätz, Jonas. 2012. Unconventional Resources: The Shifting Geographies and Geopolitics of Energy. In Strategic Trends 2012: Key Developments in Global Affairs, ed. Daniel Möckli, 79–102. Zurich: Center for Security Studies.
Hillbom, Ellen. 2012. Botswana: A Development-Oriented Gate-Keeping State. African Affairs 111: 67–89.
Karl, Terry Lynn. 1997. The Paradox of Plenty: Oil Booms and Petro-States. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Kessides, Ioannis N. 2014. Powering Africa′s Sustainable Development: The Potential Role of Nuclear Energy. Energy Policy 74: S57–S70.
KPMG Africa. 2013. Oil and Gas in Africa: Africa’s Reserves, Potential and Prospects. http://www.kpmg.com/Africa/en/IssuesAndInsights/Articles-Publications/Documents/Oil%20and%20Gas%20in%20Africa.pdf.
Maggio, G., and G. Cacciola. 2009. A Variant of the Hubbert Curve for World Oil Production Forecasts. Energy Policy 37 (11): 4761–4770.
McDonald, Paul. 2012. Africa: The New Oil and Gas Frontier. Oil and Energy Trends 16. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1744-7992.2012.00215.x/full.
McGlade, Christophe, Jamie Speirs, and Steve Sorrell. 2013. Unconventional Gas – A Review of Regional and Global Resource Estimates. Energy 55: 571–584.
Ovadia, Jesse Salah. 2014. Local Content and Natural Resource Governance: The Cases of Angola and Nigeria. The Extractive Industries and Society 1 (2): 137–146.
———. 2016. The Petro-Developmental State in Africa: Making Oil Work in Angola, Nigeria and the Gulf of Guinea. London: Hurst.
Oxford Business Group. 2015. Rising US Shale Production Impacts African Oil and Gas Exporters. http://www.oxfordbusinessgroup.com/analysis/trading-down-rising-us-shale-production-impacts-african-oil-and-gas-exporters.
Power, Marcus, et al. 2016. The Political Economy of Energy Transitions in Mozambique and South Africa: The Role of the Rising Powers. Energy Research & Social Science 17: 10–19.
PwC. 2015. Fit for $50 Oil in Africa: Will the Boom Go Bust? http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/oil-gas-energy/publications/pdfs/pwc-fit-for-50-dollar-oil-in-africa.pdf.
Radice, Hugo. 2008. The Developmental State Under Global Neoliberalism. Third World Quarterly 29 (6): 1153–1174.
Raval, Anjli. 2016. Nigerian Oil Companies Hit Hardest by Finding Crisis. Financial Times, November 27. https://www.ft.com/content/56793724-923c-11e6-a72e-b428cb934b78.
Ross, Michael L. 1999. The Political Economy of the Resource Curse. World Politics 51 (2): 297–322.
———. 2012. The Oil Curse: How Petroleum Wealth Shapes the Development of Nations. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Scottish Enterprise. 2014. Doing Business in West Africa: Oil & Gas Subsea Focus. http://scottishenterprise.presscentre.com/imagelibrary/downloadmedia.ashx?MediaDetailsID=1394&SizeId=-1
Selley, R.C., and D. Van der Spuy. 2016. The Oil and Gas Basins of Africa. Episodes: Journal of International Geoscience 39: 429–445.
Shen, Wei, and Marcus Power. 2016. Africa and the Export of China’s Clean Energy Revolution. Third World Quarterly (forthcoming): 1–20.
Sindzingre, Alice N. 2013. The Ambivalent Impact of Commodities: Structural Change or Status Quo in Sub-Saharan Africa? South African Journal of International Affairs 20 (1): 23–55.
Taylor, Ian. 2014. Africa Rising?: BRICS – Diversifying Dependency. Oxford: James Currey.
———. 2016. Dependency Redux: Why Africa Is Not Rising. Review of African Political Economy 43 (147): 8–25.
Usman, Zainab. 2015. Africa’s Oil Shock. Al Jazeera, January 16. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/01/africa-oil-shock-economy-20151653236689289.html.
World Bank. 2013. Africa’s Pulse: An analysis of Issues Shaping Africa’s Economic Future, vol. 8, October. http://www.worldbank.org/content/dam/Worldbank/document/Africa/Report/Africas-Pulse-brochure_Vol8.pdf.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Andreasson, S. (2018). Emerging Frontiers of Energy Exploration in Post-boom Africa. In: Raszewski, S. (eds) The International Political Economy of Oil and Gas. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62557-7_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62557-7_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-62556-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-62557-7
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)