China ’s state-owned oil company CNPC, the China National Petroleum Corporation, has signed a$ 400 million deal with the military junta that controls Niger, providing a much-needed infusion of cash after the coup damaged relations with Niger’s previous big oil customers, the United States and France.
The memorandum of understanding ( MoU) signed on Saturday appears to involve China lending the junta a sizable sum of money to upgrade its oil infrastructure, though the precise details of the contract have not been made public.
CNPC is currently working on a network project in Niger through one of its affiliates, PetroChina. The network is designed to reference Niger’s Agadem oil industry, which also features strongly in Saturday’s offer, with the port town of Cotonou in Benin.
Niger has extensive fuel resources, but limited capacity to utilize them. It now operates only one small fuel plant capable of processing about 20,000 containers per day, the majority of which are consumed in Niger or neighboring Nigeria.
According to analysts, Niger has at least 957 million barrels of oil, and it could quickly provide more than triple that amount if its investigation of the country’s largely untapped eastern base turns out well.
The military strongman Gen. overthrows Nigeria’s civil government. Abdourahamane Tchiani took over the Western-friendly leadership of ousted President Mohamed Bazoum in July 2023, a much more angry “National Council for the Safeguard of the Fatherland.” ”
The junta aimed to oust Western forces and established conflicting relationships with various multinational corporations, including the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS ), which once threatened to invade Niger to restore civilian rule. To counteract outside pressures, Niger and the juntas in Burkinabe and Mali formed a coalition to form a union to form their elected governments.
The Niger junta made the announcement in March that its counterterrorism cooperation with the United States was ending, casting a serious doubt on the protection of the great and fragile Sahel region. By the end of 2023, the majority of French soldiers had been driven out.
China, of course, does not care about politics, social liberty, or human privileges, so it is content to do business with the Niger junta. Analysts who reportedly believe China struck a deal with Niger compared to its arrangement with Angola, which borrowed billions of dollars from Chinese banks to rebuild after its protracted civil war ended in 2000, and has since repaid those loans with oil assets, were cited by The South China Morning Post (SCMP ).
Due to China’s willingness to shoulder enormous debts that Third World political elites ca n’t afford, and as a result, slowly seizes control of valuable assets like ports and oil wells as collateral, these financial arrangements have been criticized as debt traps.
Akinwumi Adesina, the president of the Africa Development Bank, criticized China’s policy of collecting petrol and other natural resources as payment for money, calling them “non-transparent, cruel, and manipulable” plans that” complicate debt solution and lease the future of nations.” ”
Because Foreign oil companies have been buying oil from Niger for a while and most African countries are trying to break away from the Angolan funding design, professor David Shinn of George Washington University, who specializes in China-Africa connections, said the new agreement was unexpected. China has already made a$ 4 investment. 6 billion in Niger’s fuel economy and owns two-thirds of the great Agadem fuel industry.
Because ECOWAS restrictions imposed after the coup have been lifted for humanitarian reasons, China might have increased its assets in Niger, allowing for large oil imports from Niger to start. China may be interested in Niger’s ample supply of high-grade plutonium, which France purchased in happier days for its nuclear power plants, and it might even view Niger as a great place to build a second military base abroad, similar to the one it established in Djibouti in 2017.
“China is a great companion for Niger, we can never say it enough, ” declared the junta’s perfect minister, Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine, who also serves as finance minister.
In an effort to refute criticism of China’s debt-for-oil swaps, Zeine stated when announcing the MoU that it must be remembered that since the beginning of this excellent oil adventure, China has always been on the side of our country and that it has been proven that at such vital times, we may certainly manage to obtain an advance because these are Niger’s rights, and we will give ourselves all the means to repay them.
