Furthermore, available long-term scenarios from international organisations show that the global energy consumption will continue to grow due to the economic development, urbanisation and population increase (IPCC, 2000, 2008; UNDP, 2001; UNEP, 2006; IEA, 2004). According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), over the next 25 years, the world population is projected to grow to almost 9 billion people. The global energy demand will increase approximately 100% over the period 2010–2050.

Within this dramatic scenario, the EU is one of the largest energy consuming regions in the world. Over recent decades, energy consumption in European countries (EU27) rose from 71,747 in 1980 to 83,824 quadrillion Btu in 2010 with petroleum and gas contribution 31,505 quadrillion Btu (18% of world’s oil consumption) and 20,935 (17.9% of world’s gas consumption) and total energy consumption is forecast to increase by 20% by 2030.

When coming to the availability of energy resources, on the other hand, the world reserves of primary energy and raw materials are, obviously, limited in size. According to recent estimates, the reserves will last another 218 years for coal, 41 years for oil and 63 years for natural gas, under a business-as-usual scenario (EIA, 2013). The petroleum age began about 150 years ago. Easily available energy has supported major advances in agriculture, industry, transportation, and indeed many diverse activities valued by humans. Now world petroleum and natural gas supplies have peaked and their supplies will slowly decline over the next 40–45 years until depleted. Although small amounts of petroleum and natural gas will remain underground, it will be energetically and economically impossible to extract them.

Additionally, NATO defines geopolitical risks with potential government decisions to suspend deliveries because of deliberate policies, war, civil strife and terrorism. Energy industries in supplier countries are subject to extensive government interference, and do not function in a competitive market framework. For instance, some nations have prohibited foreign investment in their energy sectors, while others have demanded a greater share of control or revenues (eg, Russia, Venezuela, Iran, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan). NATO also stresses that energy will increasingly be used as a political weapon. A good example of this is the Russian–Ukrainian conflict, which shows how energy rich countries can force other poor energy countries. In addition, security of supply is threatened by political instability of exporting regions where civil wars, local conflicts and terrorism have often been cause of temporary damage of energy facilities and infrastructures (Laurmann, 1992; Bentley, 2002; Correljé and van der Linde, 2006; Bilgin, 2009; Toft et al., 2010).

Beyond increasing GHG emission levels, widespread impacts are expected on food and water supplies, weather patterns, ecosystem stability and, of course, energy production itself. Exceptional natural disasters could delay the exploration of oil and natural gas fields, and more extreme weather situations could force the shutdown of oil production in the affected regions. Preventing that harm will require a fundamental transformation of the energy system. Clearly energy transition changes are likely to be expensive. However, studies have concluded that ignoring the problem will cost even more. The Stern Review, for example, concluded that, in case of inaction, the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 5% of global GDP each year (Stern Review, 2006). The same study estimates the cost of GHG emissions mitigation to be between 1% and 2% of GDP per year. Thus in the UN Climate Change Conference, it was stressed that it is mandatory to put in place a robust policy mechanism to achieve the stabilisation of GHGs in the atmosphere.

As a mentioned before, the world continue to consume more energy as well as produce more CO₂ emissions, at the same time geopolitical situation around energy producing countries keeps tense. It is, obviously, energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies as well as change in consumer behaviour will play a very important role in reaching low-carbon societies. And as any measures there are urgent needs to create energy policy. Many countries have already implemented their energy or low-carbon policy. Despite these initiatives, current efforts are still not enough to reach low-carbon societies. Many new long-term scenarios show that new and more radical energy and climate policies are needed to avoid humanity becoming locked into carbon-intensive development paths (IPCC, 2007; EIA, 2013; see also Laconte, 2011).

At the same time energy policies need to be placed in a broader context encompassing urban, transportation, agricultural, technological and societal policies. For instance, cities are hubs of innovation and creativity and will be central to achieving a sustainable future. An increasing number of initiatives limiting GHG emissions in cities in industrialised countries are already in place. These initiatives include the deployment of low-carbon mass transportation systems such as bus rapid transit systems, car-sharing arrangements, cycling infrastructure, support for public transport, solar thermal technologies for hot water supply, energy efficiency projects for public buildings and integrated waste management.

The importance of this topic is also reflected in the field of social research, with various projects that examine the global challenges faced with respect to access to oil, gas and mineral resources and propose solutions for the various policy actors by combining theoretical and empirical analyses from a wide range of disciplines as political science, economics, geology, engineering, technology, law and security studies. The results shows, in brief, that countries with energy deficit will be progressively forced to pay higher prices for imported fuels, competing at the same time with each other in order to secure supplies, ie, to acquire energy sources from countries characterised by energy surplus. On the contrary, energy exporting countries will gain more and more from growths in the cost of energy.⁷ Dynamics like these are among the main causes of the fortune of countries like Russia, Dubai and Abu Dhabi (see Acuto, 2010).

An additional element that characterises the mentioned ‘new energy world’ is the difference between democratic areas (such as the EU) and State Capitalist governments (such as China). More in particular, democratic states generally aim at enforcing upon State capitalist governments specific policy criteria and principles to encourage cooperation in the exploitation of natural resources, that do not fit the values and priorities of the latter, in so doing generating tension in political and economic relations.

Within the global energy order, both energy-exporting and energy-importing countries develop strategies in order to improve their position with respect to actual or potential competitors (Helm, 2002; Peters, 2004). This is evident when looking at the construction of networks and formal/informal agreements between exporting countries, institutions and organisations grouping energy importing countries, and hybrid forms of regionalisation gathering both exporting and importing countries (such as the strategic alliance between China and Russia in order to limit the American influence in Asian energy affairs).⁸ A clear sign of this reorganisation may be found in the ongoing nationalisation of energy companies and energy resources in many countries.⁹ Of course, energy operators in the private sector still play a significant role, as testified by their colossal profits in recent years, but strategic decisions are more and more in the hands of national governments (Behr, 2010). The most striking example of the tendency towards resource nationalism is probably the one of Vladimir Putin, who led the Kremlin towards national control of oil and gas recourses and who transformed Gazprom, the Russian national enterprise with a monopolistic position in the field of natural gas, in one of the richest and most powerful energy companies of the world (Stern, 2005; Champion, 2006). Also, the case of Japan, a country characterised by a huge energy deficit, testifies to the tendency towards resource nationalism. In fact, Japan supports national energy companies in the seek for secure oil supplies overseas (Hisane, 2006). On their hand some European countries as France and Italy have pursued a different strategy, promoting the development of strategic connection with energy-exporting countries, particularly in Africa, where it is possible to take advantage of sociocultural and economic networks with former colonies (Klare, 2008a).

This ‘resource nationalism’ is so diffused that it may be conceptualised as a phenomenon echoing the old ‘arms race’. Control over oil, natural gas and other energy resources is considered crucial, and in this sense geopolitical relations are evolving according to the logics of energy security (Behr, 2010; Bradshaw, 2009; Favennec, 2011; Goldthau and Witte, 2010).

However, in the last decades of the 20th century there had been a slowdown in the discovery of new fields and, since the early 1970s, starting with the 1973 energy crisis, concerns about the limits of oil stocks – being a scarce and exhaustible resource – began to rise. Various experts began to question the capability of the energy industry to ensure increases in oil production (see, above all, the famous and controversial ‘The Limits to Growth’, 1972) and many scholars raised the alarm on the fact that, with similar figures, the ‘peak’ of the extraction was quickly approaching (Curtis, 2009; Hall and Day, 2009).¹⁰

Oil is an energy source characterised by high territoriality: it is inextricably linked to the places where crude oil is extracted and where transport infrastructures are located. Extraction sites are geographically concentrated in areas which are not rarely distant from places of consumption, and for this reason oil has to be moved over long distances through different countries. The management of oil security, therefore, involves a number of countries and places, including extraction, transit and consumption sites. According to British Petroleum (BP, 2013), more than 50% of the oil reserves in the world are currently located in the Middle East. The largest shares of reserves are located in Saudi Arabia (15.9%), Iran (9.4%), Iraq (9%), Kuwait (6.1%) and the United Arab Emirates (5.9%). Outside of the Middle East only Venezuela (17.8%), Canada (10.4%) and Russia (5.2%) possess relevant reserves (BP, 2013).

Europe is characterised by high needs of oil: the external demand in 2012 has been of 639 million tonnes (EC, 2013), and oil imports come from a large number of countries. At the same time, European oil production is pretty low, that is about 185 million tonnes in 2012 (EC, 2013). Indeed, as already mentioned in Chapter 2, Europe may be considered a ‘single’ market for many perspectives, characterised for example by common environmental laws. However, European countries undertake relations with different external suppliers and by different oil transport systems (Fig. 4.1). The EU mainly acquires oil from five areas: the North Sea (particularly Norway), Russia, the Caspian area (Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan), Middle East (Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq) and North Africa (Libya and Nigeria). Geographical proximity is therefore crucial in the European oil supply scenario, but it has to be mentioned that about 12.8% of European imports come from two distant areas: Venezuela and West Africa (EC, 2013). Offshore deposits in the North Sea belong to Norway, the United Kingdom and Denmark. Oil extracted from the North Sea is for two-thirds destined to Europe, and for one-third to North America. Crude oil refined in Norway, the United Kingdom and Denmark is brought to Europe via undersea pipelines or ships. Supplies from the North Sea are considered highly secure because of the stability of the European market and because of the good relations between European countries (Correlje and Van der Linde, 2006), but actually oil reserves in the North Sea are scarce (15 billion barrels).¹¹

Every year, Europe imports about 150 million tonnes of oil from the Middle East. Oil imports from this area used to be higher in the past, but with time – as a consequence of the various oil shocks experienced during the years – European countries have diversified oil suppliers, increasing imports from the North Sea, the Caspian area and Russia. Similarly, the yearly imports from North Africa amount to about 100 million tonnes, particularly from Libya and Algeria. European relations with these two countries were tense in the past, especially in the aftermath of the colonial era. Relations are today controversial and oil supplies can’t be taken for granted (Correlje and Van der Linde, 2006; Dabashi, 2012). Oil from the Middle East and North Africa (the MENA region) arrives in Europe mainly through pipelines running through the coasts of Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. From Morocco, oil is transported by ship, as there are no pipelines crossing the Mediterranean.¹²

Russia and the Caspian Sea countries provide about 330 million tonnes of oil every year. Given current estimated reserves of about 120 billion barrels, production is expected to be assured for at least 30 years. Europe is the main importer for this area, followed by China and United States (each one importing about 20 million tonnes of oil every year according to BP Statistical Review of World Energy, 2013). It has to be mentioned that trade relations between Russia and Europe developed after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the Soviet Union the extractive and the energy industries used to be highly integrated between Russia and the other countries of the area (Soviet zone of influence). But with the economic crises that characterised the Soviet transition towards a liberal market economy, Russia promoted direct exports to Europe, bypassing the Soviet zone of influence (Champion, 2006). This trend has determined the rise of Russian energy industry but also geopolitical tensions between former Soviet countries, as it is particularly evident in the case of natural gas (Stern, 2005; Aalto, 2008). Oil from Russia and Caucasian area gets in Europe through various corridors, and particularly:

As mentioned, under the Soviet Union Caucasian states used to maintain direct connections with Russia, with Moscow that controlled Caspian energy reserves and the pipeline networks were constructed so as to link all the energy-rich countries to Russia. Although Russian hegemony in the area is still visible, Caucasian states have partly opened their markets to direct commercial relations with the EU. The Soviet Union’s demise, in fact, opened the region to external actors allowing foreign companies to invest in exploiting energy reserves and constructing alternative pipeline routes to transport gas and oil from the region to the international markets. As mentioned, Caspian oil reserves are low when compared to those in the Middle East; what makes Caspian energy resources so significant is that they offer Western buyers the opportunity to diversify energy imports away from the nearly monopolistic energy supplies of the Middle East and Russia.¹³

The distribution of natural gas extraction sites is even more geographically concentrated than in the case of oil: Iran, Russia and Qatar control about half of the world reserves, while the other eight countries (Turkmenistan, the United States, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, Nigeria, Algeria and Australia), as a whole, control a further 21%. With the exceptions of Venezuela, the United States and Australia (controlling together 9.5% of world reserves) all these countries are located in Africa, in the Persian Gulf area and in the former Soviet Union (BP, 2013).

Natural gas presents tight linkages with territorial proximity, even more than oil. Natural gas is too voluminous to be moved by other means than pipelines. As it will be discussed later, the main challenge with natural gas corridors is to maintain relatively constant flows of supplies (Victor et al., 2006; Aalto, 2008). In the case of countries non connected through pipelines – for example because separated by oceans – the only possibility is to import natural gas in liquid form (liquefied natural gas), involving complex and expensive processes of gasification and cooling (Klare, 2008a).

As far as the EU is concerned, consumption of natural gas accounted for 24% in the total energy mix in 2012, a figure fully in line with global trends. Specifically, the EU consumed 520 billion m³, with an increase of 7.2% with respect to 2011 (EC, 2013). Also in the case of natural gas, Europe strongly depends on external supplies: with the exceptions of Netherlands and Denmark, all the other countries are net importers (EC, 2013). Europe imports every year more than 330 billion m³ of natural gas via pipelines and 50 billion m³ in liquid form. About 75% of imported natural gas comes from three countries: Russia, Norway and Algeria. More than 80% of natural gas exported from Russia and Algeria is directed to Europe, as the majority of natural gas comes from Norway.

Natural gas arrives in Europe through three different paths (Fig. 4.2):

Recently, the EU is promoting a differentiation of natural gas suppliers in order to reduce energy dependency from Russia. International relations with Russia are, in fact, rather complex,¹⁴ and different from other external suppliers which are considered ‘reliable partners’ and which agreed with the EU’s well-defined economic and contractual frameworks (Youngs, 2009). In Europe, Russia is often considered an ‘unreliable’ natural gas supplier, particularly because of Russian ‘economic menaces’ concerning gas exports. On the one hand, European countries are trying to promote alternative ways to acquire natural gas, particularly by developing routes directed to countries other than Russia. On the other hand, Russia has tried to limit the strategic power of transit countries, as Ukraine and Belarus by constructing new pipeline routes (two new sections of North Stream, ended in 2011, and South Stream). North Stream and South Stream may be interpreted as explicit projects aimed at enhancing Russian monopolistic position in the provision on natural gas for Europe (Champion, 2006). With the construction of North Stream, Gazprom will distribute natural gas directly in Germany, Netherlands and in other European countries without interference from Ukraine. Similarly, South Stream (which runs from Russia to Burgas, in Bulgaria, and then to Austria, Italy, Greece, Hungary and Serbia) has decreased the economic feasibility of Nabucco, a pipeline financed by the EU and the United States which is expected to run side by side with South Stream, providing natural gas from Azerbaijan, Iran and Turkmenistan, and not from Russia.

According to IEA, coal production has more than doubled since 1980 and coal could replace oil to become again the most important source of energy (IEA, 2013). Thanks to the enormous reserves of coal and thanks to the increasing demand for energy, the use of coal could increase in the future, ensuring security of supply with reduced geopolitical risks. Coal and lignite are, in fact, widely available: proven reserves are sufficient for the next 109 years at current rates of production (BP, 2013). Coal is also widely distributed around the world with particularly large reserves in the United States (27.6%), Russia (18.2%) and China (13.3%). Big reserves are also held by India, Australia, South Africa, Kazakhstan and Ukraine (Fig. 4.3).

In the coming years, coal demand is expected to remain relatively stable in Russia and Japan and to grow in the United States, India and China. China, in particular, is expected to consume ever-increasing quantities as it struggles to keep up with rising demand for electrical power. As many as 1000 new coal-fired power plants are expected to come on line in China over the next 25 years. India, too, is expected to build many more coal-fired plants in order to satisfy its growing need for electricity. For most of these countries, a pronounced reliance on coal can be explained by its presumed abundance and relatively low cost. Important exporting countries for hard coal are Indonesia, Australia, Russia, the United States, Colombia and South Africa, who together accounted for around 87% of all coal exports in 2012. The top coal importing countries are China, Japan, India, South Korea, Taiwan, Germany, the United Kingdom, Russia, Turkey, Italy and Spain, together accounting for 80% of the coal trade.

Trends in coal use differ from region to region. In Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, coal consumption declined slightly since 2000; in the EU it decreased of about 14%. In contrast, coal demand in developing countries has increased dramatically. Growth in non–OECD countries from 2000 to 2012 amounted to 2.3 Gtce, (+126%). The main driver was China, where coal consumption increased from 1.0 Gtce in 2000 to 2.8 Gtce in 2012. Thus, China has accounted for 83% of the growth in world coal consumption; India accounted for 12%.

On an energy basis, the European Union is the world’s fourth largest consumer of coal after China, the United States and India. In the EU, hard coal production has declined from Europe’s mature production centres whilst volumes of imported coal have grown significantly. Major coal consuming countries in the region are Germany, Poland, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Italy, France, Greece, Spain, the Netherlands, Bulgaria and Romania. In 2012, Germany was the largest coal importer in the EU, followed by the UK, Italy, Spain, France, the Netherlands and Poland. In 2012, 17% of all coal exports were destined for EU member states. Leading exporters to the EU are Russia (26.1%), Colombia (23.9%), the United States (18.1%), Australia (8.9%), South Africa (8%) and Indonesia (5.2%). Imported hard coal makes a significant contribution to the EU’s security of energy supply and offers a competitive fuel which can be easily and safely transported and stocked. Coal offers a much higher level of supply security: the reserves and resources of coal and lignite that are most significant together account for 94% of the EU’s remaining potential. Hard coal, both produced and imported, is much less expensive than imported oil or gas and the majority of EU member states enjoy the benefits of coal.

The environmental impacts associated with coal are now fairly understood. Inevitably, coal mining interferes with the environment; however, ecological impacts are increasingly well addressed during mine planning, operation and landscape restoration. The maritime transport of coal is safer than before and it can be easily stocked in large quantities. Emissions from coal use, such as sulphur dioxide, NO_x and dust, can be almost eliminated by commercially available pollution control equipment. In the EU, most coal-fired power plants are now equipped with highly efficient flue gas desulphurisation. For some years, the environmental debate has focused on global climate protection. The strategy to reduce CO₂ emissions from coal use begins with more efficient state of the art power plants, assumes the further development of power plant technology to reach higher efficiencies and leads ultimately to power plants fitted with CO₂ capture and storage. Installations with CO₂ capture should be commercially available by 2020, reducing CO₂ emissions from coal-fired plants by around 90%. Central to the wide use of this technology is an investment friendly legal framework and public support for a CO₂ transport and storage infrastructure.

Europe imports a respectable share of oil from the Gulf – approximately 15% of the oil that Europe needs (EC, 2013) – but the main external country with a major political and military influence in the area is the United States and it is not a coincidence that the United States tends to interpret any operation carried out in the area as a potential national or world threat (Klare, 2008a). However, signs of resistance and opposition to American influence over the area occurred cyclically in recent years. It is worth mentioning the position of Abdullah, the Saudi King, in March 2007, who considered illegal the US military occupation of Iraq.¹⁷ The Saudi King affirmed that Arab countries would have to cooperate, all together, to solve the region’s problems and to avoid the Americans determining their fate. Moreover, energy reserves in the Persian Gulf are so large that several other countries – Russia, China, India and Japan in particular – are trying to expand their influence here (Barnes and Jaffe, 2006). There is no doubt that growing economic relations with China, Japan, Russia and other countries are in line with the words of the Saudi King and with the attempt to erode the role of the Americans in the Gulf; this process of diversification will intensify, probably, in the future (Goldthau and Witte, 2010).

As mentioned above, before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Central Asian and Caucasian states were strictly controlled by Russia: oil and gas were always consumed within the borders of the USSR, and foreign companies were not allowed to operate in this area. Most of the decisions concerning oil platforms, refineries and pipelines were taken by Soviet planners (Gokay, 2001). This scenario changed in the aftermaths of the formation of the independent states of the Caspian Basin in 1991: these countries, generally lacking technical and financial capacities to fully exploit their oil and gas reserves started to cooperate with Western companies in order to break free from Russian control. They allowed foreign companies to extract national oil and gas obtaining, in a few years, foreign direct investments for billions of dollars (Sukhanov, 2005).

The hydrocarbons of the Caspian Sea basin are crucial for many geopolitical actors. Russia traditionally controlled the Caspian Sea basin since the beginning of the 19th century. Currently, United States, Europe and China consider the Caspian Basin an attractive alternative to the Persian Gulf (Gokay, 2006). Most of the existing pipelines in the region have been built by the Soviets during the Cold War years. In recent years, the United States promoted the construction of alternative export routes bypassing the Russian territory; for example, the United States, Azerbaijan and Georgia in 2006 completed the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, which runs from Baku (Azerbaijan) to Ceyhan (Turkey) avoiding the Bosporus.

The European Commission hopes that the Caspian basin will help to reduce European dependence on Russia (Gokay, 2006). European companies have a substantial presence in some of the largest reserves of the area (for example, Eni and British Gas hold a significant amount of reserves in Karachaganak; Eni, Total, Royal Dutch Shell and Inpex play a key role in the consortium managing Kashagane’s fields). European companies are also interested in the construction of pipelines carrying Caspian oil to Europe without passing through the Russia Federation: several European consortia participated in designing corridors, as in the cases of the Nabucco project, or White Stream project, which should transport natural gas from Turkmenistan to Central Europe, running through Ukraine.

It has to be considered that the pipeline strategy is crucial for the Kremlin, too. In past decades, Russia has been fast in realising new corridors in the former USSR countries, like in the case of the Caspian pipeline (Caspian Pipeline Consortium) linking, since 2001, Tangiz (Kazakhstan) to Novorossiisk (Russia). Russia, by the means of Gazprom and other national companies, signed agreements with main Caspian energy producers and with transit countries in order to manage energy exports directed to Europe (Gokay, 2006).

With about 10 million barrels per day in 2012, Africa produces about 10% of global oil production (BP, 2013). According to BP, Africa possesses about 126 billion barrels of oil in proven reserves, nearly 10% of the world’s total (BP, 2013). Thanks to the discovery of new deposits and the intensive exploitation of existing ones, Africa is the continent with highest growth in oil production, while Africa is also the continent with the lowest level of oil consumption (3.5% of world consumption in 2012). Oil production in Africa is concentrated in the Mediterranean coast (particularly in Algeria and Libya) and, in the last decades, also in the Gulf of Guinea. The oil extracted in this region is considered of excellent quality and the majority of the new fields are located off-shore. Oil extracted off-shore is characterised by lower transport costs. It is also easier to guarantee the security of off-shore sites because they are isolated by political events on the mainland (Ferguson, 2006).

From a geopolitical point of view, Africa is considered by the United States an ideal energy supplier, and African oil represents about 25% of US imports (Carmody and Owusu, 2007). During the last decade also China’s dependence on African oil has increased: in 2012, China imported 46 million tonnes of oil from African countries; in 2006, Angola became the main supplier of China’s foreign oil, surpassing Saudi Arabia (Carmody and Owusu, 2007). Chinese national companies, like China National Off-shore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and Sinopec, purchased rights for the exploration and exploitation of oil and gas in Angola, Nigeria, Sudan, Gabon, Congo Brazzaville, Equatorial Guinea, Mauritania, Niger, Kenya, Algeria, Libya and Somalia.

European countries are key players in the exploitation of African resources because of geographical proximity, because of old connections dating back to colonial times, and because of the desire to diversify energy suppliers, ie, to weaken the role of Russia as the main energy supplier (Dicken, 2007). The French transnational corporation Total produces oil in seven African countries: Algeria, Angola, Cameroon, Congo-Brazzaville, Gabon, Libya and Nigeria. Total is also the main foreign corporation investing in Congo-Brazzaville and Gabon. Differently, British transnational corporations operate specifically in former colonies. British Petroleum, for example, has invested in Algeria (in alliance with Sonatrach), in Libya (in alliance with the local company National Oil Company) and in Angola (particularly in activities of off-shore extraction). Royal Dutch Shell in 2005 has extracted about 1.1 million barrels per day, right before the closure of many extraction sites as a consequence of riots and disorders in the delta of river Niger. Italian transnational corporation Eni (formerly a state-owned enterprise, currently privatised) has invested in Algeria, Angola, Congo-Brazzaville, Egypt, Libya and Nigeria.

Many lesser-known European transnational corporations have been operating in Africa for decades, in strict connection with local elites and local policy makers. The meaningful profits exploited by foreign corporations, together with the lack of positive spillovers for African economies, have been at the centre of a number of critical analyses (Dicken, 2007). European corporations are willing to maintain their hegemonic positions in the continent in the future, but during the last decade their role in the extractive industry has been reduced because of the growing role of giant American energy corporations and because of the investments from China and India. Overall, the global competition for the control of African energy resources underlines a number of global problems concerning global energy governance and, in general, the uneven, ongoing processes of economic globalisation (Ferguson, 2006; Dicken, 2007).