Earlier this year, I was invited to a barbecue at the home of a Texas oilman, Steve Espinosa, and his wife, Norma. Their two-story house sat on an unnamed road, nestled in a community called the Condominio Riviera Atlantico, about ten miles from Luanda, the rapidly expanding capital of Angola.
But there were plenty of cars: Porsche Cayennes, Audis, and BMWs, all tucked neatly into identical carports adjacent to identical houses. Espinosa, a burly man in cargo shorts and a Brooklyn Industries T-shirt, answered the door and held out a beer.
He steered me through a sparsely furnished living room, past a humidor filled with Cuban cigars, and onto the patio, where several of his friends and colleagues were snacking amiably on ostrich meat. There was a second kitchen beside the pool in the back yard, with a sink, a large refrigerator, and a Weber grill.
In the past decade, tens of thousands of American and European employees of international oil conglomerates, fortified by generous cost-of-living allowances, have descended on Luanda. Multinational companies base their overseas salaries on the comparative costs of housing, clothes, food, and other commodities. The country now produces 1. Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, the French company Total, and BP all have significant operations in Angola, along with firmsβSchlumberger and Halliburton among themβthat provide the complicated logistical support required to drill and maintain deep offshore wells.
Almost nothing is made in Angola, so nearly every car, computer, crate of oranges, tin of caviar, jar of peanut butter, pair of bluejeans, and bottle of wine arrives by boat.
