South Africa recently discovered a large deposit of natural resources, specifically gas and oil. This discovery could be the equivalent of one billion barrels. This discovery comes at an interesting time whilst looking at the political situation of Venezuela. The United States has placed sanctions on Venezuela’s state-owned oil company. They have yet to determine how much oil there is exactly, but the outlook seems favorable for South Africa.
South Africa is one of the most stable countries on the continent of Africa and the most developed countries as well. The discovery of oil could foster the growth of their national economy. It will be interesting to see which countries South Africa will import this newfound oil to. With the growing oil industry in the United States, I wonder if we will export South Africa’s oil rather than Venezuela’s. Not to mention another country that we used to import a majority of our oil from, Saudi Arabia, we have strained relations with due to the murder of Khashoggi in their consulate. Considering that in October after his death, the United States placed sanctions on Saudi oil. I personally don’t believe that there will be a major increase in oil imports during the Trump administration, because of his “America first” mentality. Under a different administration there possibly could be a jump in oil imports, but with the new Green Deal that many Democrats running for president support, I couldn’t see that either.
The monetary advantage of such discovery is that South Africa could purchase machinery that can change seawater into drinkable water. In the past year they have had horrendous issues regarding their water supply and it eventually boiled down to socioeconomic status. This socioeconomic inequality isn’t uncommon in South Africa (and other developed countries) considering that in the last century they abolished apartheid.