Oil and Natural Resources in Equatorial Guinea

1529 Words7 Pages
Fourteen years ago life in my home country (Equatorial Guinea) was basic. The economy was based on agriculture and fishing and people had a basic life style until the government of Equatorial Guinea decided to form a company named GEPSA (Guinea Equatorial Petroleo and Spain Association) between Equatorial Guinea and Spain to search for oil in Guinea. The operation wasn’t successful because Spaniards said there was no oil in Guinea so they left. Guinea’s government not counting with the means to explore and search for oil in the country got into another partnership with France to search for oil in the country. After several months of exploration and studies, French people said the same thing as Spaniards, “no oil in Equatorial Guinea”. However, everything changed with the arrival of Americans in Equatorial Guinea. Americans discovered in mid-1990s that there was in fact oil in the country. This moment changed the dynamic of Equatorial Guinea. After oil and other natural resources were discovered, the life style and the environment started and keeps changing. Studies from the Environmental Impact Assessment estimates that Equatorial Guinea’s total oil production is about 320thousands barrels of oil per day. This leads to poor agriculture and extreme climate change in areas such as Bioko Island and Aseng field etc where oil is extracted from the soil. The population is growing on a fast rate, and mineral consumption is growing even faster. Nowadays, human beings are used to a certain life standards such as drive a car, fly around the globe, and Mba2 use of energy. As the standards of living raises food, minerals, constructions materials, and energy consumption raises as well. Yet in order for human beings to fulfill their
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