The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague on Monday began hearings in a dispute between OPEC’s African members Equatorial Guinea and Gabon over several small islands in an area in the Gulf of Guinea thought to contain significant oil resources.
The dispute, running for around 50 years, is over the 30-hectare (74-acre) island of Mbanie and two smaller islets, Cocotier and Conga.
Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, two neighbors in West Africa and oil producers part of the OPEC cartel, have asked the court in The Hague to settle the dispute over the islands off the coast of Gabon. The countries have asked the court over the “delimitation of their common maritime and land boundaries and sovereignty over the islands of Mbanié/Mbañe, Cocotiers/Cocoteros and Conga”.
The dispute actually dates back to the beginning of the 20th century, when France and Spain – two colonial powers that had a lot of territory in Africa back then – signed a treaty to delineate the borders between the two countries.
Equatorial Guinea claims this treaty from 1900 should be applied, while Gabon argues that a later treaty from 1974, a convention signed in Bata, gives it the right to have the islands.
Equatorial Guinea is disputing Gabon’s claim of a 1974 convention, and today asked the ICJ to reject Gabon’s claim.
“Gabon’s position is factually and legally untenable,” Equatorial Guinea’s representative at the court, Domingo Mba Esono, told the court, as quoted by Reuters.
Gabon is expected to respond in the court hearings on Wednesday. The public hearings in The Hague continue until Friday, October 4.
Both Equatorial Guinea and Gabon produce and export crude oil, and access to more potentially rich offshore oil areas could be a win for either nation.
Equatorial Guinea, which became a full member of OPEC in 2017, produced an average of 55,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil in 2023. Gabon, for its part, pumped 223,000 bpd last year.
Oilprice.com