Planned French oil mining will not benefit East London
Public opposition to oil and gas mining in SA’S coastal waters has continued unabated after the critical judgment against Shell and the SA government, which blocked the industry from seismic blasting on the Wild Coast.
Last week French oil corporation Totalenergies came to Scenery Park to hold a public consultation on 10 deep sea wells in the Mossel Bay area.
A busload of activists from Chintsa and Save the Wild Coast online group founder Dean Knox joined 90 members of the community to raise questions and make statements.
Activist Samantha Bailey said people had until Friday to hand in their comments on the drilling.
She said the meeting was run on behalf of Totalenergies by engineering and environmental consultancy company, WSP, and followed meetings in Mossel Bay, George, Knysna, Plettenberg Bay, Jeffreys Bay, St Francis Bay, Gqeberha and Port Alfred.
Baily said they were told Totalenergies would be mining in a 12,000km² area between Mossel Bay and Cape St Francis, and that the 10 wells would be drained by a 109km underwater pipeline to Petrosa’s existing FA platform. Totalenergies would oversee the construction phase, and then hand over to Petrosa for the long-term production of gas.
In discussion time, questions about job and small business opportunities for people of Scenery Park and Buffalo City drew the response that this could happen, but the work would be in Mossel Bay. There would be no direct economic benefits for East London. However the consultant said they had not conducted a full employment assessment.
Knox said the Constitution made it clear the SA coastline belonged “to all of us, for present and future generations”. Totalenergies’ drilling and extraction project offered only finite commercial activity, not long-term sustainable economic development.
Jobs he said would go to highend technicians from abroad working deep under water on gas well construction, or on the rigs or flying helicopters.
He said any major accidents and other damage caused by the short-term profitmaking of the miner and SA government would severely harm the incredible diversity of marine life including whale migrations from Antarctica to Mozambique and the annual sardine run, which supported an array of local economic opportunities.
Knox said it was improper and ineffectual for the department of mineral energy & resources to decide on the oil miners’ environmental management plan — a function which was stripped from department of forestry, fisheries & the environment.
There was rousing support when Knox called for local, small-scale renewable energy projects in the community, such as solar and wind projects run by local communities who would benefit directly from the job opportunities. This was what Totalenergies should be investing in, he said.
Members in the crowd also wanted to know if Totalenergies could guarantee that no accidents or damage would occur from their project, what measures would be put in place for the restoration of environmental destruction, and for compensation for people who would be negatively impacted.
Bailey said the WSP consultants said the risk of a major accident was low and a study was under way to model the impacts of a potential oil or gas spill.
Activists from Chintsa said they were concerned about Petrosa running the project as they had been shown to be corrupt and incompetent.
Bailey said: “We felt this could dramatically increase the likelihood of serious accidents with enormous and long term damage to the coastline environment with a devastating knockon effect on small-scale fishers, local tourism and other businesses.”
The public was invited to register as an interested party at the data-free website https://wspengage.com/total-11b12b/, sending a Whatsapp message to WSP at 076-694-3842, or emailing them at teepsaeia@wsp.com. Those who register before February 3 will have an additional opportunity to comment in March or April once the studies have been completed.