This is an important, rigorously researched and fully documented book about the oil industry in Sudan and South Sudan, paying particular attention to the role of Chinese and Indian companies. Luke Patey begins by detailing the geopolitics of Sudanese oil, explaining and showing the leading role taken by the American state and corporations in the early stages of development. However, the insertion of oil into Sudan's political economy fuelled and reinforced enthnicized inequality and divisions leading to the displacement of American economic interests in favour of those under less domestic civil society pressure, particularly companies from China and India, and also Malaysia.
As Patey notes, “paradoxically, the end result of human rights pressure was to improve the positions of less susceptible Asian national oil companies” (p. 76). This raises questions about the effectiveness of “global” human rights activism, particularly in a context of economic globalization which is throwing up new assemblages of actors from contexts where authoritarian states are able more effectively to quash or manage dissent and activism. However, paradoxically again, the departure of US companies left the Sudanese state open to greater US government pressure, as it was reportedly told that if their intelligence cooperation with the US did not improve after the September 11th attacks, the oil industry and its pipelines would be “taken out” by cruise missile strikes.
One of the strengths of the book is that the attention to intricate detail helps us to understand current developments in the Sudans' political economies. When a new major oilfield was discovered in 1980 the government had called it “Unity,” but oil was heavily implicated in the conflict between North and South, resulting ultimately in secession in 2011. Also the fact that Riek Machar's splinter group of the Sudan's Peoples Liberation Army allied itself with Khartoum in the 1990s fed into the current conflict in South Sudan.
However, this strength of the book could also be construed as a weakness, because the level of detail in the narrative sometimes makes it difficult to see “the wood for the trees.” Towards the latter part of the book, however, it reads less like a detailed history book and more like a thriller, engaging and absorbing the reader in the complexities it illuminates.
In addition to displaying a mastery of Sudan's political economy, Patey also shows a rare understanding of the institutional configuration and complexities of China's oil industry. Often the question is asked as to the extent to which these national oil companies are merely arms of the Chinese state or are independent commercially driven entities. Patey favours the latter explanation, but pays attention to these companies' interactions and interlinkages with the Chinese state. In a sense his analysis shows that the question may be misplaced. That is, it is not so much the formal institutions which determine outcomes, but the guanxi or trust networks which are most important in understanding the interactions between government and the oil companies. The opacity and strategic ambiguity created by these configurations are used to good effect, as they allow Chinese state influence, in addition to international capital market access. Although Patey argues that the primary motivation for overseas investment by the companies is the need to offset declining resources at home and thereby assure company survival.
Recently in the literature there has been discussion of African agency in the relationship with China. Patey shows how the Sudanese state is keen to maintain a diversity of sources of foreign investment to avoid over-dependence and to leverage the most advantageous deals for itself. However, the bargaining power of governments may decline as poor management and production methods on the part of Chinese oil companies deplete oil fields faster than would otherwise be the case. The focus on rapid extraction comes at the cost of “sustainability.”
This is an important book, which researchers in the field will find to be a very valuable reference work and resource. The level and extent of Patey's research is truly impressive and represents a major accomplishment. If there is a criticism of the book, it is that its analysis is under-theorized and the implications are not drawn out as fully as they might be. The concluding chapter is very brief, whereas it would have been helpful to have a fuller discussion of what the lessons of the study were, and what the implications are for the “resource curse” and geopolitics more broadly. This is not to detract from the book, which will undoubtedly become the standard reference text for those interested in the history and evolution of the oil industry in Sudan and South Sudan and the implications it has for the political economy of those countries.
