Pelican Parts Forums - DoD Establishing U.S. Africa Command

DoD Establishing U.S. Africa Command
http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,124237,00.html

Quote:

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. military will establish a separate U.S. Africa Command to oversee military operations on the African continent, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced during Congressional testimony today.

"The president has decided to stand-up a new unified, combatant command, Africa Command, to oversee security cooperation, building partnership capability, defense support to non-military missions, and, if directed, military operations on the African continent," Gates said in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The command will enable the U.S. military to have a more effective and integrated approach than the current command setup, Gates said.

Responsibility for operations on the African continent is currently divided among three combatant commands: U.S. European Command, which has responsibility for most of the nations in the African mainland except in the Horn of Africa; U.S. Central Command, which has responsibility for Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia and Kenya; and U.S. Pacific Command, which has responsibility for Madagascar, the Seychelles and the Indian Ocean area off the African coast.

Gates called this arrangement an "outdated arrangement left over from the Cold War."

He added that DoD will consult closely with Congress and European and African allies to implement the effort.

What the article does not tell you is that there is more oil in Africa than the Middle-East and we are combating China for it.

The new secret war?

Africa tops Mideast as U.S. crude source, helped by market changes
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/02/21/business/NA-FIN-US-Oil-Imports.php

Quote:

NEW YORK: When it comes to supplying the United States with oil, Africa is quietly trumping the Middle East.

U.S. crude oil imports from Africa topped supplies from the Middle East in 2006 for the first time in 21 years, recent government data show. As recently as 2001, U.S. imports from the Middle East surpassed African supplies by more than 10 percent, or 1.3 million barrels a day. Now, the fractional edge given to African crude oil suppliers underscores a number of market changes and may grow wider in coming years.

Surging growth from Asia — led by China, where oil demand is expected to grow 6.2 percent this year — is drawing huge volumes of Middle East crude. In the U.S. market, output constraints from aging oil fields in Mexico and Venezuela are weighing on imports from those countries.

Crude supplies from Africa and the Middle East each accounted for a 22 percent share of U.S. crude imports, but in actual physical supplies, Africa's flow topped the Middle East by 8,000 barrels a day.

Crude from Africa, at 2.23 million barrels a day, was the highest since 1979 and a 4.8 percent jump from 2005. The 22 percent share — the biggest in 25 years — compares with 21 percent last year and a share of less than 13 percent in 2002.

The volume of U.S. crude imports from the Middle East, at 2.22 million barrels a day, dipped just 20,000 barrels a day on the year, but marks the third straight annual decline. The flow of Middle East crude into the United States was at the lowest level since 1998 and the 22 percent share is the slimmest since 1997.

"Strong demand growth in Asia is pulling Persian Gulf crude eastward and the new supply from Africa is staying in the Atlantic Basin," said Greg Priddy, global energy analyst at the Eurasia Group in Washington, D.C.

Major producers such as Saudi Arabia — the world's largest oil exporter — and other Middle East producers have targeted more volumes to China and India, where they've also built joint ventures to sell petroleum products.

Saudi Arabia saw its third straight decline in crude supply to the U.S. market, with a 1.7 percent dip to 1.42 million barrels a day, the lowest volume since 1999.

Supplies from other traditional top suppliers Mexico and Venezuela are raising concern, due to declines in output. U.S. crude imports from output-constrained Caracas slumped 8.2 percent. While Venezuela held its fourth-place ranking among U.S. crude suppliers, the volume of 1.139 million barrels a day was the lowest in any year since 1994.

Oil producers in Africa have picked up the slack. U.S. crude imports from Angola surged 41 percent in December from a year earlier, capping a 12.5 percent full-year gain to a record average of 513,000 barrels a day.

U.S. crude imports from Algeria jumped 57 percent to 357,000 barrels a day in 2006, the highest volume since 1980.

For the second straight year, crude imports from Chad rose by nearly 30 percent, reaching a high of 95,000 barrels a day in 2006.

However, U.S. imports from Nigeria — Africa's biggest oil producer — dropped 3.2 percent on the year to 1.043 million barrels a day, the lowest level since 2003 as civil unrest in the oil-producing Delta region disrupted supplies throughout the year.

Canada remains the top U.S. crude supplier, a title it has held each year since 2004, when it eclipsed Saudi Arabia. In 2006, Canada supplied 1.782 million barrels a day to the United States, the most ever from a single source and a 9.1 percent jump from a year ago.

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David Bird is a correspondent of Dow Jones Newswires

We need an energy policy...........we need leadership on this subject.