Power struggle in Angola amid new oil boom

LUANDA, Angola, May 11 (UPI) -- Angola, Africa's second-largest oil producer, is locked in a power struggle over who'll succeed longtime strongman Jose Eduardo dos Santos amid signs offshore exploration will open up giant fields like those found by Brazil across the Atlantic.

Meanwhile, separatist rebels in Angola's enclave of Cabinda, the West African state's major oil-producing zone, have offered to hold peace talks that could end decades of conflict that has hampered the development of Angola's oil industry.

But trouble seems to be brewing, since it's unlikely in the extreme that whichever member of the political elite takes over from dos Santos, the veteran guerrilla fighter who has ruled Angola since 1979, in the expected presidential elections later this year will make any major changes.

The ruling party, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, "is too deeply entrenched for political change to come simply through voting," observed global security consultancy Stratfor.

Angola, a former Portuguese colony that fell under the ruled of the once-Marxist MPLA upon independence in 1975, produces 1.8 million barrels of oil per day, with exports of some 1.7 million bpd.

It trails behind the continent's main producer, Nigeria, which has an output of around 2.4 million bpd.

With oil prices high, the country's economy is expected to expand by 10 percent in 2012 as the government drives to push up oil production to 2 million bpd by 2014.

The rebels of the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda have not been particularly threatening of late, although their attacks on foreign oil companies such as Chevron of United States has forced them to adopt tight security.

Flec's peace talks offer suggests they seek to join forces with other political groups that are emerging in opposition to dos Santos and his inner circle.

They are all veterans of the grueling jungle war against Portugal and the 27-year civil conflict that followed the Portuguese departure and ended in 2002.

It's clear that discontent with President dos Santos' regime and the copious corruption in high places that holds it together -- aided by the United States, France, Israel and other states that support it for its oil -- is growing.

Crude oil represents 45 percent of Angola's gross domestic product and more than 90 percent of its export revenue.

Big hopes are pinned on the offshore frontier in which Britain's BP, ConocoPhillips of the United States, Total of France, Statoil of Norway and ENI of Italy have all secured drilling rights -- for hefty fees.

Statoil reputedly paid close to $1 billion to the regime for its stake.

Major strikes in the Kwanza and Benguela Basins will give the regime more power, unless it sees the light and spreads Angola's wealth around.

Little of the oil revenue has trickled down to the population at large under the MPLA.

"Widespread economic inequity means that poverty is extensive," Stratfor observed.

"The MPLA's elite, particularly dos Santos and his inner circle, benefit greatly from being in power.

"Not only does the MPLA control the country, but it also works to ensure that it had undisputed political control over the country's natural resources, which include vast oil fields, diamonds and various minerals," Stratfor noted.

"The MPLA government has used this tremendous wealth for personal gain. It has also used this wealth as a tool to win support from lawmakers through patronage and to maintain the loyalty of civil society members."

Angola and the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo are in dispute over their offshore maritime boundary, a potentially rich oil zone that Kinshasa wants to control.

The MPLA, the victor in a long-running civil war that had started even before independence from Portugal, makes great efforts to ensure the DRC is under Luanda's thumb.

It does not want the government of President Joseph Kabila in Kinshasa to support Angolan rebel groups or engage in activities that threaten Angola's security or economic interests, as it did during the Cold War in which the MPLA was backed by the Soviet Union and Cuba.

The DRC was in the U.S. camp during that period, and Luanda remains deeply distrustful of Kinshasa and is concerned about Congolese who are plundering Angola's rich alluvial diamond fields.