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| The Challenges & Environmental Cost of Oil Exploration in Puntland
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Since the inception of Adde Muse’s term of office as president a lot has been said about oil exploration in Puntland by himself and by those who show interest in Somali affairs. Despite this fact, little we know about the potential environmental cost of an adventurous enterprise co-owned with unknown oil companies named as thugs by Adde Muse himself. As evident from his administration’s pattern of behavior, the latter may, due to lack of environment protection and contingency plans, sheer ignorance or out of narrow self-interest, cause more harm than good to the remaining parts of Puntland and leave behind an environmental disaster of monumental proportions.
It’s a commonplace that whenever Puntland elders and intellectuals voiced concerns about the security, the administration’s mantra was that so much focus was placed on the economy and oil exploration at the expense of security and things will get better as oil drilling kicks off economic boom, which will be panacea for all Somali ills. The administration continued to give a rosy picture in a bid to sedate the people with bright and promising future and lull them away from their vigilance.
Ironically, since Adde came to power, hope and despair have become two faces of the same coin in Puntland and while people’s marathon wait for change endured, his administration aged and became ever-deteriorating one. On one hand, shocking events have taken place in almost every province of the territory once controlled by the administration and Puntlanders watched in disbelief how the regime gave up the very fundamentals on which the people prided themselves, but on the other hand, they clung to hope and looked forward to that moment of re-assessment when Adde and his associates would reverse course or an election would unseat them.
Having seen occurrences of mammoth scale including:
The people are now running out of patience and keep an eye on what change Feb 2009 election would bring about.
Against this background, it’s a question of paramount importance not to write off the possibility of oil pollution occurrence in Puntland, if Addes’s quest for oil exploration (which is a noble goal in itself) is not sought properly and in a wholistic fashion.
The fact of the matter is that Adde will go and so did Abdullahi Youssuf but there always remains issues of great concern for Puntlanders and as oil prices reach record high ($ 126.00 a barrel) and this fuels the world’s insatiable appetite for the black gold, exploration and drilling of Puntland reservoirs may start at a quicker pace without regard to any environmental arrangements. Therefore, it’s incumbent upon Puntland intellectuals to raise public awareness on the fact that production of hydrocarbons is not free of cost and that the extent of hunger, despair and misery in our country should not blind us to the potential environmental risks and lead us to eat the fish without checking for bones.
Damage to the environment has taken different forms throughout Somalia since the last 17 years and it extended from burning trees for charcoal business to excessive fishery and dumping wastes in the territorial waters but any oil pollution would further harm our habitat, add insult to injury and should be avoided before it becomes too late.
Personally i am with sustaining and environmentally savvy oil exploration but such exploration must be done under the supervision of Somali nationals with the necessary know-how and competence to safeguard the sanctity of our environment and habitat as well as legislators and legal experts with ability to enact the right laws and hold accountable whoever violates our inalienable rights.
Environmentally safe oil exploration and production is the right thing to do so Somalis could have economic stability and see the light at the end of the tunnel. Undoubtedly, there is a huge reservoir of oil and gas in our territory and as highlighted below the characteristics of our country resemble the features of oil saturated lands. But the downside to this is placing such important task at the hands of already failed administration and their foreign associates.
Puntland & Petroleum deposits
Puntland’s topography and its natural features on the surface of the land reveal that the area is fraught with hydrocarbon accumulations. It’s true that the largest chunks of Somalia’s continental coastal line fall within Punltand territory and it’s geological fact that most the world’s oil lies in sedimentary rocks formed from marine sediments deposited on the edges of continents. This is why many of the largest deposits lie along seacoasts such as the Gulf of Mexico and the Persian Gulf. Therefore, Puntland’s offshore oil is more promising than the oil sitting on its onshore where so far two reservoirs namely Holhol and Dharoor were earmarked as venues for drilling.
Oil and Contaminated Water
Resevoir rock usually contains three fluids: in addition to oil and gas, it contains salt water because most reservoirs are sedimentary formations that were deposited in or near the sea and were originally saturated with salt water and without clear environmental policy, oil companies will dump thousands of tens of oil contaminated water in a safe habitat good for grazing. Oil is lighter than water and will not readily mix with it, however, oil will not displace all the water and there will be oil contaminated water.
In his book “Confessions of an Economic Hitman”, John Perkins recounts how oil companies turned pure, untouched and innocent to toxic and contaminated. Perkins says:
“At the time of my first visit in 1968, Texaco had only just discovered petroleum in Ecuador’s Amazon region….. A trans-Andean pipeline built shortly after my visit has since leaked over a half million barrels of oil into the fragile rain forest…. Vast areas of rain forest have fallen, macaws and jaguars have all but vanished, three indigenous cultures have been driven to the verge of collapse and pristine rivers have been transformed into flaming cesspools…..Ecuador is in far worse shape today than she was before we introduced her to the miracles of modern economics.”
The Legal Point of View with Regard to Oil Pollution
The International Convention on Establishing International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage
This convention was adopted at a conference held in Brussels in 1976 and it governs, together with the local laws of the jurisdiction where oil pollution damage occurs, any dispute arising from environment damage.
The convention provides inter alia:
“The Fund's obligation to pay compensation is confined to pollution damage suffered in the territories including the territorial sea of Contracting States. The Fund is also obliged to pay compensation in respect of measures taken by a Contracting State outside its territory;
The Fund can also provide assistance to Contracting States which are threatened or affected by pollution and wish to take measures against it.
I am not sure if the Somali Republic was a contracting party to the above convention and even if so, in the absence of strong and viable Somali government, how could the Puntland administration ensure enforcement of its provisions.
It’s true that our people are in real financial difficulties and pumping wealth out of underground reservoirs would be a huge economic turnaround but doing so without taking the environmentally necessary steps and facing the challenges coupled with oil production, such enterprise would become an exercise in futility.
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