Dominique Gallois
On October 27 the French oil company Elf Aquitaine published a communiqu stating that its chair, Philippe Jaffr, had gone to Congo-Brazzaville on October 26 and met the victor of the civil war, Denis Sassou- Nguesso.
This was the second time in the past few months that Elf had to reveal its chair’s schedule in Africa. On June 12, it was forced to admit that he had met President Omar Bongo of Gabon and that they had become reconciled after several months of strained relations.
Elf is the biggest company in both Congo and Gabon. The purpose of such communiqus is to normalise, and even play down, relations between the French company and these countries’ governments in order to counter repeated charges that Elf can make or break a regime in accordance with the French government’s Africa policy.
Elf’s privatisation in 1994 was presented as an opportunity to sever its connections with the French government. It wanted subsequently to appear like a normal oil company, comparable in its conduct to other leading groups in the sector, though still retaining great influence.
Above all, Elf wanted to duck charges from its competitors that it had colluded with the regimes of countries where it was well established. But reputations and mindsets are not easily changed. “It’s time you stopped behaving like French ambassadors, getting involved in domestic politics. Just act like industrialists,” is the message that Jaffr hammers home to his expatriate staff.
His strategy is in line with the foreign policy now pursued by the French government, which intends to stop becoming involved in conflicts in Africa. But once those principles have been paraded, what actually happens may be somewhat different, as the group’s new “Mr Africa”, Jean- Franois Gavalda, told Le Monde.
“Contacts with heads of state depend on the size of the country,” he said. “In Gabon, which has one million inhabitants, Bongo knows everyone. It’s only normal he should meet the boss of Elf, the country’s largest company. Things are different in Nigeria and Angola, because they are bigger countries. There we tend to deal more with oil ministers.”
Caution is the watchword in the case of any conflict. “When you turn up in a family and two people are fighting among themselves, you mustn’t get involved even if you have an opinion about the dispute. Your two friends could well gang up against you.”
Elf says it adopted a strictly neutral stance during the civil war in Congo, a country of 2,6-million inhabitants and Africa’s fourth-largest oil producer – after Nigeria, Angola and Gabon.
The group repeatedly denied rumours that it was supporting one side or the other, or that it later put its money on the future victor, Sassou-Nguesso. His return to power is clearly not something that Elf regrets. During his 13 years as president, from 1979 to 1992, relations between the company and the Marxist-Leninist regime could not have been better. Elf controlled the oil industry, the only other group with a finger in the pie being Italy’s Agip.
Matters took a turn for the worse when Lissouba came to power, as Elf had supported his predecessor right to the end. Relations cooled when Congo’s new president opened up the country’s mining sector to the United States group, Occidental Petroleum. Following that crisis, relations gradually returned to normal. Elf continued to obtain mining permits, but had to resign itself to the arrival of other prospectors, such as Shell, Chevron and Exxon.
Back in power, Sassou-Nguesso faces a totally new ball game in the oil industry. Since the beginning of the 1990s, Africa has ceased to be the preserve of a handful of companies.
Competition is tough. Every possible argument is used in an effort to get an exploration permit. In Angola, whenever oil concessions are auctioned off, Elf’s competitors make a point of reminding the government that the French company long supported the Unita rebels.
At the same time, the volume of investment required to explore the sea floor means that companies are forced, paradoxically, both to compete and to co-operate with one another. They compete to become operators, and go into partnership to finance projects.
To varying degrees in different countries, political influence is gradually being supplanted by new forms of competition such as technological expertise and financial clout. One of Elf’s trump cards is the lead it has in its geological knowledge of the terrain. Its expertise will be a key factor in determining whether it will be able to maintain its strong position in the region. – Le Monde