As minnows follow majors into the prospective deserts of the African Sahel, fears are mounting that political and ethnic conflict might follow the oilmen into the fray even before the drillbit is sunk in the western desert.
A wave of industry interest has swung inland as Mauritania consolidates its offshore discoveries, and with half a billion barrels now pumping each day from fields nearby in southern Sudan and Chad, hopes are that the Central African Republic (CAR)might soon prove up big prospects and spike these too into the Chad-Cameroon pipeline.
With