Oil in the Congo Basin: A Carbon Sink Under the Hammer
Location:
Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo
Project risks:
Environmental Destruction, Social Harm
approximate location
The Congo Basin is under the hammer. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), an oil auction opened up vast areas of the Congo rainforest for oil drilling. If fossil fuel companies start extracting oil in the Congo Basin, the effects would resonate deep into the rainforest and around the globe. A Congo Basin oil spree could turn one of the world’s largest carbon sinks into a climate killer. It could leave humans’ closest living relative, the bonobo, homeless. The mountain gorillas of the Virunga national park would once again see their home under threat. It would represent an economic gamble that people in Congo's forests and across the world fiercely reject.
The Congo Rainforest Under the Hammer
In July 2022, the DRC government put licenses for 30 oil and gas blocks all across the country up for
sale.14841 At least 13 of the 30 blocks overlap with protected areas like the Virunga and Upemba National Parks.14845 According to Didier Budimbu, DRC Minister of Hydrocarbons, TotalEnergies and ExxonMobil were interested in the oil licenses.14849 Later, both companies claimed they would not participate in the
auction.14851 It is not clear whether they will keep their promise. After various delays in announcing the results, the auction was finally called off in October 2024.21406 The government’s promise to renew the process in due time shows that the respite could be short-lived.21407
The DRC’s oil auction opened the doors for fossil fuel companies to invade the rainforest in the Congo Basin, which stretches from the African Great Lakes in the east to the Gulf of Guinea in the west. It straddles six countries.14855 The largest part of the Basin lies in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Through the Basin flows the world's deepest river, the Congo River. Along its banks lie savannahs, swamps, peatlands and old-growth forests. It is the only river in the world to cross the equator twice.
The second largest rainforest on Earth grows in the Congo Basin.14857 Thousands of different plant and animal species live here. Many of them cannot be found anywhere else on the planet.14859 Okapis, the so-called forest giraffes, wander through the dense rainforest. The closest living relatives to humans, the bonobos, climb in the trees. More than 98% of bonobo DNA is identical to human DNA.14861 The Congo Basin is their only home.15503
Note:
On October 11, 2024, the DRC’s government officially called off the auction for the 27 oil blocks and 3 gas blocks described in this story.21405 The announcement, however, suggested intentions to launch a new auction – signalling that the threat is far from over.
The Congo rainforest supports the livelihoods of around 80 million people throughout Central Africa.14863 Approximately 40 million people live in the forest.14865 Among them are an estimated 500,000 Indigenous people.14867 The Mbuti, Baka, Batwa and other Indigenous peoples often live nomadic lives. They move around the rainforest several times a year.1486914867 For many of them, the forest is more than just the place where they live: it is their spiritual ground and connects them with their ancestors.14871
Most local people have no say in the oil plans. A 2022 report highlighted the concerns of local people who live in four of the oil blocks that were up for auction.14845 In some of these areas, hardly any roads, hospitals, schools or mobile phone networks exist. Many families collect their drinking water from rivers and earn an income from farming, fishing and hunting. They depend on healthy ecosystems and clean rivers. An oil spill in these areas could ruin their harvest and poison their only source of drinking water. Many people worry that the oil companies will take their land, chase them away and fuel tensions in the already conflict-ridden country. In the country’s only active oil block on the DRC coast, the Anglo-French company Perenco has been contaminating soil and water with oil spills and poisoning communities with toxic gases for more than 15 years.1487314875 Villagers in the oil blocks most recently up for auction fear that their home could face the same fate.14845 Perenco initially showed interest in the Congo Basin auction, but later decided to withdraw from the original iteration.21408
Dubious Companies
A significant motive for the auction’s cancellation were allegations of corruption surrounding the process. Alfajiri Energy, the company that won the Lwandjofu gas block auction, was set up 16 days after the auction’s announcement – despite local law requiring three years’ financial statements for a company to be considered eligible.21409 The company’s official address is a suburban home in Calgary, Canada, and as of a December 2022 report made by the DRC’s government to assess bidders’ suitability, it only counted three members of staff available for the project.21410 Although Alfajiri Energy scored the lowest of three bidders for the block in the December report, a subsequent version arose in which it received the highest score.21411 Soon after, the company was declared the winner of the Lwandjofu gas block in Lake Kivu. The 3 gas blocks on Lake Kivu were the only blocks not mentioned in the government’s announcement cancelling the auction.21412 It is not clear if they will end up in Alfajiri Energy’s control. Lake Kivu is considered to be at high risk of limnic eruption, a rare phenomenon in which high concentrations of methane and CO₂ dissolved in the water can explode if disturbed.21413 The gas plumes displace oxygen, which suffocates breathing organisms in its vicinity.21414 A limnic eruption at Lake Nyos in Cameroon killed around 1,700 people in 1986.21415 Now, a company with no prior experience could be entrusted with extracting methane from the depths of Lake Kivu, one of the most densly populated areas in the region.21416
Drilling in the World’s Carbon Storehouse
When oil and gas companies drill in the Congo rainforest, they also jeopardize the carbon storehouse in the rainforest’s soil: peat. Peat comes in thick layers of brown soil-like material in the ground. It forms over thousands of years as dead plants sink to the bottom of the swampy parts of the forest. Unknown to many, peat is enormously efficient at storing carbon. Peatlands cover only 3 percent of the Earth’s surface, but they hold more carbon than any other type of vegetation.14877 For this reason, scientists from all over the world plead for the protection of peatlands.14879
The peatlands of the Congo Basin are at the global frontier of climate change. They are the largest tropical peatland complex in the world. Scientists estimate that they hold 31 billion tons of carbon.14881 This is about as much carbon as global fossil fuel combustion causes over a timespan of three years.14883 The peatlands of the Congo Basin have helped regulate the world’s climate without disturbance from industry or infrastructure for thousands of years.14883
In the DRC oil and gas auction, a big chunk of this carbon storehouse was up for sale. Three oil blocks overlapped with the peatlands in the Congo Basin.14883 If oil companies were to extract oil from the ground, they would need to cut down the trees in the rainforest, drain the wetlands and build roads and other infrastructure. In the process, they would dry up the peat and release the carbon stored within it, resulting in oil produced with a staggering carbon footprint.14855
Destroying Rainforests and Peatlands for Nothing?
Drilling for oil in the vulnerable Congo rainforests and the vital carbon sink of the peatlands is an economic gamble. So far, there has not been one example of successful oil production in the rainforests and peatlands of the Congo Basin. In those parts of the peatlands that stretch across the border into the neighboring country Republic of the Congo (ROC), oil companies have been sitting idly on their oil blocks for years. Until July 2023, Eni and Société Nationale des Pétroles du Congo (SNPC) held oil licenses in the peatlands of ROC.14887 Contrary to what the companies had hoped, oil production never took off. TotalEnergies also held an exploration license in the ROC's peatlands but handed it back to authorities in 2021.14889
As of summer 2023, the only company that has drilled in the Congo Basin is Petroleum Exploration and Production Africa (PEPA). In 2019, PEPA drilled an exploration well in the Ngoki block and announced a massive find. However, industry experts doubt that PEPA’s figures are plausible. Some believe that PEPA tried to lure investors into financing oil projects in the region.14887 PEPA has not announced further progress since it drilled the exploration well in 2019.
Virunga Under Threat, Again
Back in the DRC, at the easternmost edge of the Congo Basin, the oil auction penetrated the borders of the world-renowned Virunga National Park. Set up under Belgian colonial rule, the park is widely known for its rich wildlife. This UNESCO World Heritage Site is home to rare and endangered species, such as the mountain gorilla. While Indigenous people and local communities were forced to leave the national park for the sake of “conservation”, oil companies have been invited in. Whether the new auction’s blocks continue this reckless trend of overlapping with ecological wonders remains to be seen. Two oil blocks were up for auction in the Virunga National Park.14891 From there, the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) could possibly transport the oil to the East African coast. The DRC government began negotiating access to the controversial mega pipeline project that TotalEnergies and CNOOC want to build in Uganda and Tanzania.15503 One of the auctioned oil blocks in the Virunga National Park stretched across the mountain gorilla sanctuary. Both oil blocks also stretched across the whole of Lake Edward. The fish of Lake Edward supply more than 50,000 people with food and a source of income.14893 Its water feeds the Nile River which flows all the way to Egypt and into the Mediterranean Sea. Any pollution would wreck regional ecosystems, destroy people’s livelihoods and fuel conflict between the DRC and the countries along the Nile.14895
This was not the first time that permits for oil blocks were up for sale in the Virunga National Park. In 2010, SOCO International, a British oil company today known as Pharos Energy, began searching for oil there. In this region already torn by indigenous displacement and conflicts with armed rebel groups, SOCO’s quest for oil unleashed a new level of violence.14891 Local people and rangers who worked to protect Virunga were arrested, tortured and killed.14897
Women and fisherfolk from the area were the first to protest against the oil company. Their movement soon turned into a global wave of resistance.14899 Hundreds of thousands of people around the globe petitioned against SOCO.14901 The British government, Nobel Peace prize winner Desmond Tutu and financiers joined the calls. The Church of England divested GBP 1.6 billion from the British company.14903 In 2014, SOCO gave in to public pressure and abandoned its plans to drill for oil in the Virunga National Park. TotalEnergies, who at that time also held exploration rights in the area, also gave in and pledged not to explore for oil in the Virunga National Park.14905 The historic resistance against oil exploration in the Virunga National Park should be a lesson to international companies hungry for oil in the Congo Basin.
Expect Resistance
Nearly a decade after the collapse of SOCO’s plans, environmental defenders and local people are still prepared to fight for the forests, animals and peatlands in Virunga and the rest of the Congo Basin. In 2022, more than 100,000 people petitioned to halt the opening of the Congo Basin to oil production. They called the plans an “unmitigated disaster for the climate, biodiversity and local people.”14907 Already in 2019, a coalition of African civil society organizations urged international companies to refrain from exploiting fossil fuels in the peatlands. They also pushed investors to stay away from financing projects that overlap with the peatlands of the Congo Basin.14909 As the fossil fuel industry takes further steps to exploit oil there, civil society’s call is as persistent as ever before. In several open letters, Congolese civil society organizations, youth movements and Indigenous peoples demanded that the DRC government halt the oil and gas auction.21418 They are building a strong network of local and international groups to oppose the fossil fuel industry’s surge on their homes and forests.21419
So far, oil companies’ attempts to turn the Congo Basin into an oil production zone have failed. Environmental defenders kept fossil fuel companies out of the Virunga National Park. They will continue to fight for healthy rainforests, undisturbed peatlands and a fossil-free Congo Basin.
Groups working against oil in the Congo Basin: Appui aux Initiatives Communautaire de Protection de l'Environnement de Développement Durable (AICED), Congolese Centre des Technologies Innovatrices et le Développement Durable (CTIDD), Mouvement de Jeunes pour la protection de l’environnement (MJPE-RDC), Réseau pour la Conservation et la réhabilitation des écosystèmes forestiers (CREF), Innovation pour le Développement et la Protection de l'Environnement, Association des Jeunes Visionnaires RDC, Fossil Free Virunga, 350Africa.org, Greenpeace Africa, Rainforest Rescue, Extinction Rebellion République University of Goma, DRC, Synergy of Ecologists for Peace and Development (SEPD DRC), Solidarité pour la Réflexion et Appui au Développement Communautaire (SORADEC)
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