Environmental associations and local communities are concerned about the possible environmental impact of oil and gas extraction on the region’s important ecosystem.
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- Reconnaissance Energy Africa, an oil and gas company headquartered in Canada, recently launched exploratory drilling operations in northern Namibia.
- As northern Namibia and Botswana have several interconnected watersheds, including the Okavango Delta, the possibility of waterways contamination by pollutants and their spread throughout the region is of particular concern.
On December 21, Reconnaissance Energy Africa (Recon Africa) announced that it had launched oil and gas exploration drilling on the Namibian portion of the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area). or Kaza). This decision has alarmed environmental activists and local populations who are worried about its possible repercussions on the rivers, inhabitants and wildlife of the region.
Recon Africa holds a license authorizing it to explore 2.5 million hectares in northeastern Namibia and granted in January 2015 to the company to which it succeeded. The majority of the territory covered by this oil exploration permit (the Petroleum Exploration License 73 or Pel 73) is located in the Kaza region, a conservation area with an area of 520,000 km² shared between Angola, Botswana , Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The company also has a license to explore for oil in a portion of the Kaza with an area of one million hectares and located in the north-west of Botswana. It hopes to launch the first drilling there in 2021.
Concerns
The Kavango-Zambezi Transboundary Conservation Area is home to Africa’s largest elephant population and is one of the last strongholds of African wild dog (Lycaon pictus). The regions of Botswana and Namibia on which Recon Africa is authorized to conduct exploration operations lie largely in the Okavango River Basin, which drains into the Okavango Delta, a World Heritage Site. of Unesco and recognized for the richness of its biodiversity. Conservationists are particularly concerned about the possible repercussions of drilling on the interconnected watercourses of the river basin.
“We know very little about the groundwater resources of the oil and gas extraction areas in question here”, says Surina Esterhuyse, a hydrogeologist at the Free State University in South Africa. “In Botswana, the Okavango River basin is still relatively preserved, but exploration and extraction projects could have serious impacts on the delta [de l’Okavango]. »
Recon Africa is drilling in a sedimentary basin with a depth of 9,000 meters that geologists refer to as the “Kavango basin”. The objective is to determine whether the underground of the Kaza actually contains oil, and if it is possible to profit from it. According to estimates by Daniel Jarvie, a geochemist working as a consultant for Recon Africa, the basin could contain a volume of extractable oil and gas equivalent to that of the Eagle Ford Basin in Texas. Since production began in 2008, more than 20,000 gas and oil wells have been drilled at Eagle Ford.
“The potential impact of oil and gas extraction on Namibia and Botswana’s water resources is our main source of concern”, explains Esterhuyse, whose work focuses on the consequences of oil and gas extraction on groundwater resources. “Our two major concerns are the consumption of water in areas such as northern Namibia, where it is a scarce resource, and the possible contamination of water sources during gas and oil extraction. “
The risks posed by oil and gas extraction are multiplied by resorting to unconventional hydraulic fracturing techniques, or fracking. Also, the “unconventional hydrocarbons” to which Recon Africa regularly refers in its marketing documentation, as well as the recruitment of experienced hydraulic fracturing engineers, cast doubt on the company’s intentions.
Claire Preece, spokesperson for Recon Africa, and the Namibian government said there were no plans to use hydraulic fracturing.
Graphic reproduced with permission from Recon Africa
Impact assessment
For the time being, the Namibian government has only given its approval to the completion of two reconnaissance boreholes some fifty kilometers south of the town of Rundu. Any other operation would require the completion of additional environmental impact studies and the approval of the Namibian government which, through the national oil company Namcor, is a 10% shareholder in this oil exploration project. While waiting for the conclusions of the current operations, concern is growing within civil society.
“The local communities are in total ignorance, they know nothing about the operations in progress”, says Max Muyemburuko, president of the Muduva Nyangana Conservancy, a conservation area located on the Pel 73 exploration plot. “They want their voices to be heard. ” Muyemburuko says they have not been contacted by Recon Africa or the Namibian government about possible gas and oil production projects in the region. Residents of the Muduva Nyangana Conservancy live on income from tourism and the exploitation of the territory’s natural resources. Muyemburuko fears that they may be endangered by pollution linked to oil and gas production. “Kavango is our only territory,” he adds. We will preserve it for generations to come. “
The Ministry of Mines has said that the oil exploration program will in no way degrade the Okavango ecosystem and highlights the potential economic benefits of the discovery of large oil reserves. The ministry further states that no oil and gas exploration operations will be permitted inside national parks, but this does not include the Kavango-Zambezi Transboundary Conservation Area, which does not enjoy the same level of environmental protection than parks.
The carefully worded responses to Recon Africa’s doubts about its possible environmental impact are clearly out of step with what it describes as a “Unprecedented opportunity” in its marketing documentation. If the Kavango basin turns out to be as profitable as Recon Africa’s shareholders hope, the Namibian government will find itself divided between, on the one hand, the financial windfall that oil exploitation would represent and, on the other, the preservation of one of the most important ecosystems in the world.
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About
Mongabay is an American non-profit news platform. It was founded in 1999 by Rhett Butler to generate interest in the preservation of wild lands and wildlife. Its headquarters are in the United States and it has offices in Indonesia, Latin America, India. It has more than 250 journalists in 50 countries who produce content translated into nine languages.
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