OIL EXPLORATION THREATENS OKAVANGO DELTA
The fate of one of Africa’s most valuable ecosystems may depend on results from wells being drilled deep into the bedrock beneath the Kalahari of northern Namibia and Botswana in the hunt for a petroleum reservoir. If the search by Canadian oil and gas company ReconAfrica is successful, the region could be irrevocably changed.
ReconAfrica holds exploration licences for an area of more than 25 000 km² in northeastern Namibia, and a further 9 900 km² across the border in Botswana. Beneath this land lies the Kavango Basin, a geological megastructure which the company’s experts conservatively estimate to contain 120 billion barrels of oil equivalent. To put the claimed size of this deposit into context, the largest oil field in history, Saudi Arabia’s Ghawar Field, is believed to have held a total of 88 to 104 billion barrels of oil, while the country estimated to have the biggest proven reserves is Venezuela at about 303 billion barrels.
One major concern is that the exploitation of oil or gas deposits may require the use of hydraulic fracking technology, which involves injecting pressurised, water-based, chemicallaced fluid into wells to help release hydrocarbons tightly held in so-called unconventional deposits.
Namibia’s Ministry of Mines and Energy insists, however, that neither an onshore production licence nor a licence to develop unconventional resources has been applied for or granted. They declare that “no hydraulic fracking activities are planned in Namibia” and that “Recon will not be conducting any fracking activities in the Okavango Delta.”
While the ministry seems to imply that what is going on is merely exploration for possible petroleum reserves, ReconAfrica appears ready to move into oil production as soon as possible, noting that once a commercial-scale discovery is declared, their agreement with the Namibian government entitles them “to obtain a 25-year production licence”.
What is indisputable are the risks to which large, industrialised oil production would expose the region. For a distance of some 150 km, ReconAfrica’s concessions border the Kavango River, a crucial source of water in a semi-arid area and the lifeline for one of Africa’s greatest concentrations of wildlife species in the Okavango Delta into which it discharges. The region as a whole is home to around 200 000 people. The Okavango Delta, which is downstream from the suspected oil field, provides a livelihood for indigenous populations of at least five ethnic groups who rely on the landscape for water, fishing, hunting, wild plant foods, farming and tourism.
A future Kavango Basin oil field not only poses an existential risk to the Okavango Delta, a Unesco World Heritage Site — Botswana’s most-visited tourist destination and home to a very large and diverse population of animals, including more than 70 species of fish and over 400 species of birds — but it also directly overlaps the world’s largest terrestrial cross-border wildlife sanctuary, the KavangoZambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area, which straddles the borders of Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Angola and Zambia.