Nigerian photos by Akintunde Akinleye from The Atlantic, January 15, 2013, Nigeria's
Illegal Oil Refineries - In Focus - The Atlantic
BIG MEN B-
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(99 mi) 2013 d:
Rachel Boynton Official site
While Joel Berlinger’s Crude (2009)
documents the way multi-national corporations like Texaco and Chevron do
business with South American nations while in pursuit of oil profits, often
taking the money and resources while getting out quick, leaving the land ravaged
afterwards with toxic spillage left behind in the rainforests, endangering the
lives of the indigenous population living there, Rachel Boynton takes a look at
the business dealings on the other side of the globe, where in 2007, Ghana,
with the aid of the Dallas-based Kosmos Energy Corporation, discovered new oil
reserves in the Atlantic Ocean just 35 miles off their coast. Oil had never been discovered in Ghana
before, so the impact was enormous.
Seven years in the making, Boynton got into the story early on near the
point of discovery, when Wall Street investment firms were projecting profits
in the neighborhood of $22 billion dollars.
Hard as it is for the public to believe, new oil reservoirs are not something
discovered every day, in fact it’s an extremely difficult process to locate new
sources of oil, one of the specialties of Kosmos, as for the past 100 years
these competing oil companies have spent a good portion of their technology and
expertise scouring the earth in search of more oil, so by now there are few
surprises left that haven’t already been explored. Boynton is given rare inside access to
Kosmos, developing the trust of CEO Jim Musselman, whose company is bankrolled
by the investments firms of Warburg Pincus and the Blackstone Group, firms that
are only interested in a hefty return for their investment, where in their
eyes, the higher the risk, the greater the reward. The combined initial investment is somewhere
in the neighborhood of several hundred million dollars, climbing to a billion
before a single barrel of oil has been pulled out of the ocean. Boynton’s cameras follow Musselman as he is
introduced to a Ghanian tribal chief bearing bottles of Scotch and Hennessey
along with a $10,000 donation to an educational charity. The introduction is managed by a local
businessman, George Owusu and his EO Group, the Ghanian oil company that
brought the outside interests of Kosmos into the deal. Despite the pleasant, easy-going nature of
Musselman, raised on a family farm in Texas, there is something altogether
off-putting about the experience, as it recalls notions of colonialist
exploitation.
Boynton opens the
film with quotations on the subject of greed from Milton Friedman and John
Huston’s THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRE MADRE (1948), suggesting there is an ugly
side of capitalism, which only grows more pronounced with the intersection of
First World and Third World economies, where the drive for profit quickly
outdistances itself from any system of laws in place, where the film is a case
study on the behavior of financial sharks in the water, as the Jubilee Oil
Field is a reservoir of great untapped wealth, drawing out the ruthless
self-interests of all competing parties as they position themselves to
determine who will reap the rewards. Musselman
is part of a business network of complex relationships, with Kosmos executives,
financiers, consortium partners, and the government of Ghana which ultimately
has the last word on any business dealings within its borders. Musselman is on good terms with Ghanian
President John Kufour, securing favorable terms in the initial contracts drawn,
hoping to sign a Plan of Development to produce the oil. Initially all signs are optimistic as the
price of oil is skyrocketing, but this is followed both by the 2008 financial
crisis depressing the price of oil and an opposition party candidate, John Atta
Mills, winning the Ghana Presidential election, which puts all the political
goodwill and hopes of favorable concessions in jeopardy. Making matters worse, George Owusu also falls
out of favor when he’s investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice under the
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for alleged bribery and corrupt business
practices, charges he vehemently denies.
Left out of the story are unmentioned partners of Kosmos, other oil
companies that actually own a combined 61% stake of the Jubilee Project,
including Anadarko Petroleum, a rival Texas oil firm that actually prompted the
inquiry. Nonetheless, Kosmos cuts tires
with Owusu, as they want no perception of impropriety as they embark upon
negotiations with the new Ghanian President, but the Kosmos Board of Directors also lose faith in Musselman and have
him replaced. This turn of events is
surprising, since the arc of the story was being told through Musselman, as in
the process Boynton loses internal access as well, leaving the viewer a bit in
the dark. Musselman, who remains a top
executive, indignantly rationalizes how he fell out of favor, but it’s hard not
to think how he did the same thing to George Owusu, who was later exonerated of
all charges.
As a counterpoint to
the story of Kosmos in Ghana, Boynton intercuts scenes from neighboring
Nigeria, the tenth most petroleum-rich nation in the world, and by far
the most affluent in Africa, yet a combination of corporate exploitation and
government corruption has turned the Niger Delta region into a nightmare of oil
spills, environmental destruction and lawlessness, where armed militia groups
like the Deadly Underdog militants control access to the pipelines in their
territory. As much as 75% of the profits
are siphoned off into the hands of various interests, where ten years ago it
was considered the second-most corrupt country on earth (after Kenya), NIGERIA:
Nigeria angry at being rated second most corrupt, more recently replaced by
Somalia, North Korea, and Afghanistan (Read more at Transparency
International). These
Nigerian militants claim none of Nigeria’s oil wealth makes it back into their
impoverished communities, that it instead finds its way into the hands of the
“big men,” who are governmental officials and well-connected businessmen. These images are by far the most
harrowing, where holes cut into the pipelines create pools of spewing oil that
are set on fire, with the local population stealing and reselling black market
oil in areas perpetually surrounded by flames, as billows of black smoke
surround the region, controlled by young kids wearing ski masks and carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles. While
Boynton’s ability to gain access to both Jim Musselman and the Deadly Underdogs
is impressive, she never makes any connection between the two, where the
colonialist history of exploitation is never mentioned. Ghana and Nigeria have differing histories,
yet this is not explored, even as the director contrasts and compares the two
nations. Like her earlier film, OUR
BRAND IS CRISIS (2005), Boynton chooses not to use a narrator, but instead advances
the narrative by filling the screen with an excessive amount of written
material, which, when added to a procession of talking heads, is a bit of
information overload. Adding the
Nigerian picture is fascinating, but diverts the interest and may actually
belong in another film, as this film is more a profile of the inner workings of
Kosmos Energy, shedding light onto the difficulties foreign enterprise runs
into when dealing with governmental instability and changing regimes. As a portrait of an American company in search
of wealth, it can at times be fascinating, especially the candid views of
capitalism in progress from Musselman once he’s been ousted from power, but as
a portrait of Africa, it never connects the dots, where the impact of
colonialism affects every African atrocity, especially in Nigeria, where past
historical transgressions impact upon the present, but this was never
addressed, leaving the overall journalistic picture incomplete.
