Angola: Africa's new oil giant

We tend to think of Nigeria as the major producer of oil in Africa, but major unrest has diminished its output even as new discoveries have pushed Angola into the number one spot:

Chevron's latest find marks the latest in a flurry of discoveries off Angola in the past few years that have made it Africa's biggest oil producer, with output of around 1.85 million barrels a day in July.

That title used to belong to Nigeria, but a constant flow of militant attacks the past three years on oil infrastructure have knocked out about 20% of Nigeria's output capacity.

Angola's emerging importance was underscored by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent visit, which had an "unusual" focus on energy security.

China was not officially on the agenda:

"I'm not looking at what anyone else does in Angola," she said.

... but somehow I find that hard to believe.

Update: According to a new report, Western oil majors are still in charge in Angola and Nigeria:

“More importantly, the oil majors remain the leading players in both countries,” said the report, which focuses on Nigeria and Angola. “They dominate production and hold the majority of reserves.”

Rather than challenge the leading Western energy producers, companies from China, South Korea and India, “latecomers to West Africa,” have become rivals for hydrocarbon interests in the two countries, the report said.