-----Original Message-----
From: Charles Gurdon [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2004 11:21 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Equatorial Guinea and Gabon have signed an agreementColleaguesThought this might interest some of youBest wishes - Charles=================================African leaders look to settle territorial disputeOil fires Mbanie peace pact
17:07 GMT
The leaders of Equatorial Guinea and Gabon have signed an agreement to draw up an accord on joint oil exploration in waters disputed for over three decades.
Equatorial Guinea has become sub-Saharan Africa's third largest oil producer in recent years but the dispute over a handful of islands has prevented the full exploration of waters believed to hold large commercially exploitable reserves, Reuters reported.
"The parties will abstain from all behaviour and all acts that could compromise, impede, or endanger the negotiation and execution of the accord," said the agreement, signed by the presidents of the two central African countries on Tuesday.
The dispute has been simmering since 1972, when Gabon's army chased Equatorial Guinean fighters from the island of Mbanie, but had been largely forgotten until the prospect of oil rekindled interest in the Gulf of Guinea.
Equatorial Guinean President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo and his Gabonese counterpart Omar Bongo pledged in the document to hold "formal negotiations" on a joint development zone.
Shell Gabon says it has rights to prospect the Mbanie zone according to its contract with the Gabonese authorities, and has said it would like to do so. But it has put the project on hold because of the territorial dispute.
Mbanie, with an area of just 30 hectares (74 acres), and the nearby Corisco islands are inhabited by people from the Benga ethnic group, present in both Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.
Prof. Dr. Barbara Kwiatkowska
Professor of International Law of the Sea
Deputy Director NILOS
Faculty of Law - Utrecht University
Achter Sint Pieter 200
3512 HT Utrecht - The Netherlands
Phone: 31 30 253 7037/7038
Fax: 31 30 253 7073
http://www.law.uu.nl/nilos
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