No escalation or great power draw-in
Lloyd Thrall ’15 [Associate at the RAND corporation, M.A. in international studies and diplomacy, SOAS, University of London, PhD student in War Studies at King’s College London, "China’s Expanding African Relations Implications for U.S. National Security," 2015, http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR900/RR905/RAND_RR905.pdf]
There is little credible potential for a Sino-American conflict over resources in Africa. Contrary to popular and perennial assumptions about resource wars, industry and energy analysis sources project adequate supply of conventional hydrocarbons beyond 2035.6 Given reservoir depletion curves, any tightening of supply would be gradual. The adequacy of supply is further augmented when tertiary production and unconventional sources are considered (such as shale and tar sands). U.S. strength in unconventional sources, and potential energy independence, further reduces the likelihood of a conflict. Even in a future with vastly inflated hydrocarbon prices, these costs pale in comparison to those associated with a Sino-American war, the economic costs of which likely fall more heavily on China than the United States.7 Global hydrocarbon resources are distributed via a fungible global market, with many stakeholders and moderate diversity of supply. This enables importing states to buy a predictable supply of hydrocarbons at reasonable and competing prices over long contracts. African sources do not constitute a majority of this supply chain, and supposed victory in a theoretical great-power resource war would not guarantee security of resource supply. In sum, the potential for either China or the United States to be willing to enter war with a nuclear adversary over African oil, let alone other, less valuable resources, is extraordinarily small.8