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As President Obiang Nguema’s limousine approached the Congresses Palace in Bata, soldiers brandished whippy sticks to part the worthies in green caps and white party T-shirts. For months, officials had been organizing this, ordering tiepins and leather-bound folders, and faxing flowery invitations. This, the ruling party’s third ever congress, was a celebration of Equatorial Guinea’s full-blooded entry into the oil age.
It was July 2001. The American firm Triton was just starting up a big offshore oil field, just fourteen months after discovering it—a world record at such water depths. Mobil was pumping fast from its giant Zafiro field. The government, facing an uncertain future, also wanted to get the oil out fast. “What production profile the government wants . . . is determined by the security of the government,” said Max Birley, vice president of Marathon Oil Equatorial Guinea. “An insecure government will want the oil reserves exhausted as quickly as possible.” By now, Equatorial Guinea’s half a million people already boasted the world’s fourth highest production per capita, more than Saudi Arabia or Iran. Though less than a quarter of the value of Equatorial Guinea’s oil was flowing from the oil companies to the treasury, an exceedingly low share by regional standards, this still meant a flood of money that was already leading to inflation, big salary rises, and what the IMF called “a breakdown in budgetary discipline.”
