For decades, the oil-rich delta of the Niger river has been plundered by western companies and rampant political corruption. But now a small group of ruthless Ijaw tribesmen are threatening to sabotage production unless their demands for compensation are met. Sebastian Junger heads into the secretive mangrove swamps to meet the waterborne warriors who are prepared to trigger a global meltdown
Sunday April 15, 2007
On 23 June 2005 a group of high-ranking US government officials convened in a ballroom of the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington, DC, to respond to a simulated crisis in the global oil supply. The event was called Oil ShockWave, and among those seated beneath a wall-sized map of the world were two former heads of the CIA, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The scenario they were handed was this: civil conflict breaks out in northern Nigeria – an area rife with Islamic militancy and religious violence – and the Nigerian army is forced to intervene. The situation deteriorates, and international oil companies decide to end operations in the oil-rich Niger river delta, resulting in a loss of 800,000 barrels a day on the world market. Concurrently, in this scenario, a cold wave sweeping across the northern hemisphere boosts global demand by 800,000 barrels a day. Because global oil production is already functioning at close to maximum capacity (around 84m barrels a day), small disruptions in supply shudder through the system very quickly. A net defi cit of almost 2m barrels a day is a signifi cant shock to the market, and the price of a barrel of oil rapidly rises above $80. Any other disruption – a terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia, for example – would spike prices through the roof.