Arc of instability threatens Sahel’s upstream, pipeline ambitions

Coups and geopolitical rivalries complicate energy projects in the expansive region

The Sahel is an extensive, semi-arid zone that spans the African continent south of the Sahara from the Atlantic to the Red Sea coasts. The region’s countries are poor and have been historically isolated, but growing instability in the past few years—most recently with the coup in Niger—demonstrate the Sahel’s geopolitical importance for the competing global powers of the US, Europe, China and Russia. With IOCs and oil and gas projects already impacted by ongoing events in the Sahel, Petroleum Economist looks at what the zone’s precarity might mean for the sector. Amid the panoply of armed insurgents, Islamist groups and smugglers active in the region, there is also mounting ethnic violence