On the Edge: ExxonMobil, Amerada Hess, and Marathon Oil in Equatorial Guinea

People in West African countries, among the poorest in the world, survive on $ 1 a day and have a life expectancy of 46 years. But in 2004, Equatorial Guinea had a GDP ( Gross Domestic Product) of $ 4,472 per person, the highest in West Africa. In 1995, Equatorial Guinea found oil off its coast, and by 2004 ExxonMobil, Amerada Hess, and Marathon Oil all U. S. oil companies were helping that West African country produce $ 4 billion of oil revenues a year. Equatorial Guineas inexperienced government agreed to give 80 percent of these revenues to the oil companies that drilled the oil for them, although oil companies in developing nations usually take about 50 percent of revenues from oil projects. The oil companies channel through Riggs Bank, a 2004 Senate report revealed hundreds of millions of dollars to Equatorial Guineas president, T. Nguema, and his family for land purchases, security services, and office leases. A Department of Energy report says that because Nguema and his family run the government, the 20 percent of oil revenues that go to the government are spent on lavish personal expenditures, and so most oil money is concentrated in the hands of top government officials while the majority of the population remains poor. If Nguema had not been paid, of course, the Equatorial Guinea government would never have approved the oil project. ExxonMobil says it has spent $ 4 million and Marathon Oil and Amerado Hess claim to have invested millions of dollars on schools, libraries, programs for malaria, polio, and AIDS, health clinics, bridges, waterways, and electricity. A U. S. human rights report says Equatorial Guineas government violates citizens rights of free speech, of the press, of assembly, of due process, of association, of religion, and of movement and uses torture, beatings, and other physical abuse against political opponents.

1. What would utilitarianism, rights theory, and justice say about ExxonMobil, Amerada Hess, and Marathon Oils activities in Equatorial Guinea?