Gabon-at eve, or daybreak?

摘要

GABON, WITH ITS internationally modest crude production rate of around 210,000 bpd, is often overlooked when the perils of West African oil exporters in the face of the US shale oil boom, are discussed. . Yet, the country appears to have been caught up by these larger events, as well as by the global oil price crash of 2014 and now, as badly as any other. Indeed, Gabon has for some years been struggling to find a way out of a twilight zone, caught as it is between falling mature production rates, a lack of diversification, a relatively narrow set of upstream actors, an eroding market share in a key market and internal as well as external resistance to reforms. Recent subsalt deepwater discoveries promise a way out although a low oil price and slashed IOC capex budgets could prove an insurmountable obstacle, at least in the medium term.