Big Spenders: Swiss Trading Companies, African Oil and the Risks of Opacity
Publisher: Natural Resource Governance Institute, Berne Declaration, SwissAid
Author(s): Alexandra Gillies, Marc Guéniat, and Lorenz Kummer
Date: 2014
Topics: Extractive Resources, Governance
Countries: Switzerland
The sale of crude oil by governments and their national oil companies (NOCs) is one of the least scrutinized aspects of oil sector governance. This report is the first detailed examination of those sales, and focuses on the top ten oil exporting countries in sub-Saharan Africa. From 2011 to 2013, the governments of these countries sold over 2.3 billion barrels of oil. These sales, worth more than $250 billion, equal a staggering 56 percent of their combined government revenues.
Swiss commodity trading companies buy a considerable share of the oil sold by African governments. The payments made by Swiss companies generate a significant portion of public revenues in some of the world’s poorest countries, and are subject to governance risks as they take place in environments of weak institutions and widespread corruption. To date, however, these important transactions have escaped oversight due to opaque corporate practices and weak regulation.