Rebirth of England.

Chapter 770 West Africa Strategy
In fact, this time when Jammeh Bongo went to the capital of Nigeria, what he gained was not only the Kobe Abuja Agreement to ease relations with Benin, but also an oil pipeline jointly built by multiple countries...

This oil pipeline will be jointly built by Kolo, Burkina Faso, Niger and China. It will start from the Agadem oil field where Niger is jointly building with China National Petroleum Corporation, pass through parts of Burkina Faso into Kolo, and then pass through Kolo to reach the vicinity of the port of Loti.

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

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

China's initial 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 the oil on ships and transporting it 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, a portion of the crude oil and refined oil from the Kolo offshore oil field will be sold and shipped to China at the Port of Loti. If the Niger-Kolo oil pipeline is built, the more complete facilities at the Port of Loti can be used to transport Niger's crude oil.

Although the Niger-Kolo oil pipeline is relatively longer than the Niger-Benin pipeline and passes through the territory of Burkina Faso, the relationship between Kolo and Burkina Faso is very friendly at this time. In order to obtain the oil pipeline project, Kolo also promised to ensure the safety of the pipeline in Burkina Faso and send personnel to maintain it. Therefore, after negotiations, 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 make plans to split up the Economic Community of West African States, an alliance controlled by France in West African countries...

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

Although many African countries have 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 economically controls many West African countries and even the West African franc. In many cases, France's influence in this is very huge.

From this picture, we can see that around Kolo, Ghana, which belongs to the Commonwealth, is not a former French colony. Other countries are deeply influenced by France, and France still has a strong influence in them.

Even in Burkina Faso, where a strong man once appeared out of nowhere, French influence has made a comeback after Sankara's death - France currently has troops stationed in Burkina Faso.

But Barron knew that as France's national strength weakened in the future, their influence in many West African countries was also declining. 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, France and countries in the Economic Community of West African States put pressure on it, but in the end, after weighing the pros and cons, the "French White Flag" chose to withdraw silently.

The one who supported Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso at that time was the Russian mercenary Wagner...

Now Kolo itself is in conflict with Benin and is at odds with France…

And Colo wants to become the financial center of West Africa, which is bound to conflict with the French-controlled Economic Community of West African States at many times. After all, Colo's Colo shilling is more stable and accepted by more people than other countries' legal currencies, which conflicts with the West African franc...

Then, just for the sake of Colom's development plan, Colom's goal is to disintegrate the Economic Community of West African States or even replace it with another alliance.

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

Perhaps in the future, it won’t be Wagner who will 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. 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 choose to list on the Burkina Faso Stock Exchange, and there are also many United Bank for Africa institutions 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, according to the analysis of the Kolo Development and Reform Research Center, it is even easier to integrate Niger into this free trade zone than to integrate Benin into it.

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 in the two countries or in some trade and basic manufacturing industries, security is the first issue that needs to be considered.

But through the cooperation with Burkina Faso over the years, Kolo has also figured out 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 who are responsible for guarding 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 the security costs added - at worst, we can choose some areas that are firmly controlled by government forces.

Because of the support from Kolo, the areas of Burkina Faso close to Kolo are all well controlled by government forces.

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

(End of this chapter)