Fwd: OPEC antagonises Africa | Unlocking the potential of Africa’s youth

OPEC antagonises Africa

Angola, the second largest producer of oil in Africa, announced its intention to leave the OPEC cartel in December. OPEC has been committed to lower oil production since last year in a bid to prop up brent crude amid falling prices.

“If we remained in OPEC… Angola would be forced to cut production, and this goes against our policy of avoiding decline and respecting contracts,” petroleum minister Diamantino Azevedo said. While Angola has its own reasons for leaving - analysts point to an "Angola First" foreign policy - what does the move say about the wider state of Africa-OPEC relations??

Analyst Ariel Cohen at the US-based International Tax and Investment Center says OPEC is increasingly less economically and strategically useful for African oil exporters. While Riyadh and Moscow-led attempts to elevate global oil prices by limiting supply were largely helpful when Africa’s production capacities were more limited, Angola and others now have better infrastructure in place to ramp up oil production and boost exports, he says.?“Now, with African states more than willing to expand production, feed growing demand, and, in doing so, accrue significant profit, Africa’s incentives are further diverging from the Saudi-Russian-led OPEC,” he says.?

Will fellow African members Algeria, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Libya, and Nigeria follow Angola out the door?

- David Thomas, Editor, African Business

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