According to a report issued on Wednesday by two environmental NGOs, a contentious project between the National Offshore Oil Corporation of China and the French oil company TotalEnergies may inflict harm that is “unacceptable” (CNOOC).
In order to develop Ugandan oilfields and transport petroleum through a 1,445-kilometer pipeline to Tanga, Tanzania’s Indian Ocean port, the two businesses struck a $10 billion agreement earlier this year.
“In concrete terms, we are talking about a pipeline that will be over 1,400 kilometres long. And the promoters of the project boast that it will be the longest heated pipeline in the world. Why heated? It will be heated to 50 degrees because the oil in Uganda is too viscous and so they need to heat it to liquefy it and make it go through the pipeline easily. So it’s a climate aberration”, denounced Juliette Renaud, Campaigner for Friends of the Earth France.
The pipeline would release “up to 34 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere each year — significantly more than the total greenhouse gas emissions of Uganda and Tanzania,” according to the report.
The oil firms are accused by the NGO’s of failing to put in place sufficient safeguards for the environment and local residents.
“Lake Victoria, but also Lake Albert, where the oil drilling is going to take place, are sources of the Nile, so the impacts go far beyond Uganda and Tanzania. And unfortunately, what the experts who have studied Total’s social and environmental impact studies tell us is that there will definitely be leaks. Moreover, Total has not yet put in place adequate measures to prevent these leaks”, said the activist.
TotalEnergies responded to the study by promising to “do all [possible] to make it] an exceptional initiative in terms of transparency, shared prosperity, economic and social advancement, sustainable development, environmental awareness, and respect for human rights.”
More than 100,000 people were at risk of being displaced by the pipeline, according to a resolution that the European Parliament has passed, and it demanded that they be fairly compensated.
