Chapter 770 West Africa Strategy

In fact, this time when Jammeh Bongo went to the capital of Nigeria, he gained not only the "Kobe Abuja Agreement" to ease relations with Benin, but also an oil pipeline for multinational cooperation...

This oil pipeline will be jointly built by Kolo, Burkina Faso, Niger and China. The starting point is the Agadem oil field in which Niger cooperates with CNPC, and it enters Kolo through parts of Burkina Faso, and then passes through Kolo to the vicinity of Loti Port.

In this way, the crude oil extracted from Niger can be directly loaded at Loti Port through this oil pipeline and shipped to China...

After all, although CNPC entered the Niger market in 2003 and cooperated with it to extract oil, Niger is a landlocked country and needs a port to transport crude oil out.

At the beginning, China's plan was to build a Niger-Benin oil export pipeline. After all, the relationship between Benin and China is still very good. Passing through Benin and loading oil on ships at their ports is also a relatively safe channel for China.

But the difference now is that both CNPC and CNOOC have more cooperation with Kolo Oil Company, and Kolo's relationship with China is also developing rapidly.

In this case, part of the crude oil and refined oil from Kolo's offshore oil field is sold and shipped to China at Loti Port. If the Niger-Kolo oil pipeline is built, it can fully utilize the more complete facilities of Loti Port to transport Niger's crude oil.

Although compared with the Niger-Benin pipeline, the Niger-Kolo oil pipeline is relatively longer and passes through the country of Burkina Faso, Kolo's relationship with Burkina Faso is very friendly at this time, and Kolo also promised to ensure the safety of the pipeline in Burkina Faso in order to obtain the oil pipeline project, and sent personnel to maintain it. Therefore, after the discussion, the Niger-Kolo oil pipeline project was finally determined.

As for the purpose of Kolo's doing this, of course it is not just for such an oil pipeline project. The deeper reason is that Barron knows what will happen in the future, including Burkina Faso and Niger. Now, he has begun to lay out and prepare to split the Economic Community of West African States, an alliance of French-controlled West African countries...

As we all know, France was once known as the "African Gendarmerie" because at the peak of their rule, one-third of Africa was their colony.

Although many African countries have also gained independence and broken away from French colonization with the global wave of independence, in fact, in West Africa, France still has troops stationed in many countries (including Niger), and through the Economic Community of West African States, it controls many West African countries economically, even the West African franc, and many times France has a huge influence in them.

From this picture, it can be seen that in the vicinity of Kolo, Ghana, which belongs to the Commonwealth, is not a former colony of France. Other countries are deeply influenced by France, and now France still has a strong influence in them.

Even in Burkina Faso, where a strong man once appeared, France's power still made a comeback after Sankara's death - France currently has troops stationed in Burkina Faso.

But Barron knew that with the weakening of France's national strength in the future, their influence in many West African countries would also decline. Ten years later, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger all forced the French troops to withdraw and withdrew from the Economic Community of West African States...

Especially when Niger expelled French forces after the coup, both France and the countries of the Economic Community of West African States put pressure on it, but in the end, after weighing it, the "French White Banner" chose to withdraw silently.

At that time, the one who supported Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso was Wagner, a mercenary from Russia...

Now Colo itself is in conflict with Benin and is not on good terms with France...

And Colo hopes to become the financial center of West Africa, which is destined to conflict with the Economic Community of West African States controlled by France at many times.

After all, the Kolo Shilling of Kolo is more stable and accepted by more people than the legal currencies of other countries, which conflicts with the West African franc...

Then, just for Kolo's development plan, the disintegration of the Economic Community of West African States, or even replacing it with another alliance, is Kolo's goal.

Now, uniting Burkina Faso and Niger, two countries that are not only often exploited by France, but also negatively affected by the siphoning of population compared to some coastal countries, is the first step of Kolo's plan.

Perhaps in the future, it is not necessary for Wagner to support them in driving out the French garrison, but the Kolo Corps or the Protector Military Service Company...

Just like now, Kolo has signed many cooperation agreements with neighboring Ghana and Burkina Faso through financial and trade means, and the West African Mining Group has many mineral interests in Ghana and Burkina Faso...

In the financial field, many good local companies in Ghana and Burkina Faso have chosen to be listed on the Burkina Faso Stock Exchange, and there are also many institutions of the United Bank of Africa in the local area.

Basically, a free trade zone-like connection has been formed between Ghana, Kolo and Burkina Faso.

Next, not only the West African Mining Group is also interested in Niger's mineral resources, but also plans to try to bring Benin and Niger into this free trade zone...

Relatively speaking, after analysis by the Kolo Development and Reform Research Center, it is even easier to integrate Niger into this free trade zone than Benin.

However, the only difficulty is that compared with the relatively stable political situation in Kolo and Ghana, there have always been some anti-government armed forces in Burkina Faso and Niger, and even forces that can be called terrorist organizations.

Therefore, whether investing in mineral resources or some trade and basic manufacturing industries in the two countries, security is the first issue to be considered.

However, through cooperation with Burkina Faso over the years, Kolo has also explored some ways to cooperate with such countries-In addition to Iraq, the Protector Military Service Company also has a considerable number of armed personnel in Burkina Faso responsible for protecting their mines and some factories.

Well, after all, capitalists are all pursuing profits. Some processing factories that have low technical requirements and only need labor have lower costs in Burkina Faso than in Kolo, even with security costs - at most, we can choose some areas where the government army has a strong control.

Because of Kolo's support, the areas near Kolo in Burkina Faso are all well controlled by the government army.

And for the sake of interests, Kolo will not object to helping Burkina Faso stabilize the political situation at some point.