Arguably one of the easier calls for us to make after 37 years in power was that President dos Santos would find ways of affording himself another 5 years in. Like any ‘effective’ leader, Mr. Santos made sure the final deal to do just that was stitched up long before the Party Congress formally convenes…
A month on from Turkey’s failed coup attempt, and you’ll find endless op-eds opining the supposed strategic implications of Erdogan’s rear-guard offensives. In a nutshell, it breaks down into four key arguments. The first is that Erdogan will oversee a ‘brutal crackdown’ to consolidate power wherever and whenever possible out to 2019 against any form…
The political stakes are rising fast for West African production, and especially in the two major states, Angola and Nigeria. One story is essentially succession based around President dos Santos in Luanda, where he’s making sure his own daughter, Isabel dos Santos cover his political / corruption tracks in Angola. The other, is whether…
It took a while to play through, but our assessment that China would increasingly become the petro-state lender of last resort is starting to come good. The primary reason for that is producer states are rapidly running out of time to present full scale political implosion on the back of chronic economic pressures. For all the…
The fact OPEC just agreed to agree on nothing in Vienna isn’t particularly surprising given Doha wounds are still festering from the last attempt at ‘petro-diplomacy’. But the engagement ultimately has to been knocked up as a partial success for Saudi Arabia, where it’s managed to put itself back at the centre of cartel politics…