It would be bad enough if South Africa were a normal country, planted close to real markets willing to pay for oil and gas. But it isn’t. What we’re dealing with is a quasi–failed state, where some of the most venomous, violence-prone political factions claw for seats in every institution that still matters. And geography doesn’t do it any favors. South Africa sits off to the side of everything; only ships too fat or unlucky to squeeze through Suez bother rounding the Cape—and even then, they hug the horizon like nervous cats, eager to be gone.As if that weren’t enough, South Africa has already torched its own domestic economy with Marxist cosplay policies more destructive than anything the so-called “free world” has seen in recent memory. It has poisoned the well for foreign investment and strangled its own prospects. And unlike Angola or Nigeria, the South African upstream isn’t exactly gushing with promise. Which means international players have only so much patience for activist tantrums or government shakedowns before they simply walk away.
