Post #248

🇨🇲 Long Live the King! Few people are ready to openly admit any affection for 92-year-old Paul Biya - young women no longer pay him attention, and the country is tired after four decades of endless rule. But you would not guess that from the leaders of Equatorial Guinea, who show an almost ceremonial warmth toward Paul - and not without reason. Their shared gas and oil future depends on the maritime boundary, and for that they need Biya’s signature. 🌐 After Biya’s re-election, the son of Equatorial Guinea’s leader - and in his spare time the country’s vice president - Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue became the first African politician to fly to Yaoundé to congratulate Biya on his inauguration on 6 November. ⏩ But this is not just good neighborliness. The Guinean leader’s son also met with Cameroon’s state National Hydrocarbons Corporation to discuss cross-border energy projects that have been designated as priorities for joint development. 🔸 At the center is YoYo–Yolanda, a gas field discovered in 2007 and located across the territories of both countries. To simplify the process of exploitation, the two resource-rich autocracies decided to develop it together, with the distribution set at 84% for Cameroon and 16% for Equatorial Guinea. 🔸 It is clear that only a fool would agree to a 16/84 split. So Equatorial Guinea points to the unfinished delimitation of the maritime border and its intention to revise its share after the delimitation and the upcoming negotiations with Chevron on how the unified field will operate. 🔸 Meanwhile, Cameroon in turn through the National Hydrocarbons Corporation is trying to win Guinea’s favor by offering joint projects for fuel storage facilities and a modular refinery that could become the first in Equatorial Guinea. All these waltzes and curtsies look symbolic and elegant, but the main thing to remember is that behind them lies a tug-of-war over profit. Devils Below