Wednesday, February 28, 2007

 

Delta Blues - Part 3

So, what of the future of Nigeria and the Niger Delta? Will it be an all-out battle for oil revenues marred with terrorist attacks on oil producers and with resistance to change from the Nigerian government? Or will there be a more equitable solution to the social and environmental catastrophe that has developed in Nigeria?

While Nigeria's political scene is a melange of regional and ethnic allegiances that at times represents a Gordian Knot of political malfeasance, there certainly are some aspects of the government that seek resolution to the Niger Delta problem.

In the coming weeks and months, this space will be devoted to increasing awareness not just of the problems in Nigeria, but of the resolution of these problems in the most environmentally and socially responsible way possible. And there are a multitude of options, issues, and angles with which to approach the situation.

In fact, despite constant stories in the news about on-going abductions and facility take-overs by MEND and similar groups, a group called the Council for Renewable Energy in Nigeria (CREN) has recently launched what they call Nigeria's Renewable Energy Master Plan (REMP). According to the plan, CREN envisions the installation of close to 3,000 Megawatts of renewable energy production -- almost equal to the entire energy production capacity today. In an area as fertile as the Niger Delta and elsewhere, it is plain to see how energy from a variety of renewable sources can be developed to the benefit of the local populations. The REMP looks at wind, photovoltaic, solar thermal, small-scale hydro, and biomass power to achieve the renewable output goal by the year 2025. Or, going by the U.S. EIA's estimate of Nigeria's oil reserves, just about when their "cash crop" runs out. Pretty convenient.

As the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) contemplates investment in renewable fuels and moves to combine Nigerian petroleum with Brazilian ethanol; it should not be lost on the people of Nigeria, nor the government, nor the energy sector; that an estimated 500,000 jobs would be created by a Nigerian renewable energy economy.

There is much work to be done, so stay tuned to this space for a regular stream of updates on these sustainable solutions that have such a profound power to turn the situation from the current spiraling violence and chaos to a modern, fair, and environmentally-sound economy for the future of Nigeria.

 

Delta Blues - Part 2

As we sit in our heated homes and live in our television and multimedia worlds where every politician in Washington D.C. decries the terrorist movement of Al Qaeda, we turn a blind eye to the deleterious effects of our consumption of petroleum and all of its byproducts. In Nigeria, Western oil corporations have developed such an awful reputation with the local people as to be the source of repeated "terrorist"-style attacks and kidnappings.

One main seat of conflict is the aforementioned Niger Delta. In a region coincidentally called the Oil Rivers due to its once-prolific production of palm oil, multinational oil companies drill oil well-after-oil well in search of the precious petroleum. While the region accounts for only 7.5% of Nigeria's total land mass, it generates close to 75% of the country's total export revenues due to the 2 million barrels per day of oil that is extracted.

The people of the Niger Delta, some 20 million of them, have lived in the region for countless generations, subsisting primarily on an agrarian culture of fishing and farming the lush delta region. Despite this relatively basic lifestyle, they have endured consistent stress from the oil industry.

In addition to the obtrusive presence of drilling rigs and the steady buzz of tanker ships and workers going to and from the platforms, the oil industry is a massive polluter in the area, and without enforcement of environmental laws nor strict oversight of the industry, the pollution goes on despite its clear harm to the local people. Add to this the insult upon injury of the fact that the Nigerian government has been reluctant, putting it mildly, to share the revenues of the oil production from the region with the local population, and you have a toxic stew guaranteed to engender a less-than-healthy relationship. In fact, the destitution in the area combined with the fact that they are literally sitting on the world's most valuable substance has resulted in a deadly tinder-box that is ready to combust at an moment -- much like the pipelines that run through Lagos.

It is little wonder that people in the region, an eclectic mix of some 40 ethnic groups speaking around 250 languages, have taken matters into their own hands. In the last decade, groups have formed to bring the situation to light both in Nigeria and around the world. Within the last few years one such group has vaulted into public eye, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, or MEND.

MEND's tactics have a distinctive terrorist bent, including the sensational swarming oil production facilities with gunmen, the abduction of multinational oil workers, and the strategic targeting of certain facilities to interrupt the flow of oil. While these tactics are designed to play on the terrorism mentality that we have become accustomed to in the Western society, the simple fact of the matter is that the people have truly suffered, and as is the case with most types of "economic colonialism," the situation is largely avoidable.

Putting aside this inflammatory situation for a minute, one cannot help but wonder what is around the corner as the world enters a new phase of oil-flavored geopolitics. Like everywhere in the world, Nigeria's oil reserves are neither permanent nor renewable resources. Depending on which source you read, the proven reserves of Nigeria's oil wealth is either 16 or 17 billion barrels or 35.3 billion barrels. While that sounds like an incredible amount of oil, one has to simply crunch some basic numbers to realize that this is an impermanent situation.

At the current rate of extraction (2.2 million barrels per day), one can calculate the amount of time Nigeria's oil producers have to do their thing. At the highest estimate of oil reserves (35.3 billion barrels) divided by the 2.2 million barrels per day, one can determine quite easily that there is only around 16,000 days of oil production remaining at that production rate, or approximately 44 years' worth -- and, again, that is without figuring into the mix the greatly increasing demand for the fuel worldwide or the economics of the oil economy. Using the United States Energy Information Administration's significantly lower estimate of 16 billion barrels of oil, we find that Nigeria's oil supply shrinks to under 20 years' worth.

While the government of Nigeria and the multinational oil corporations have made the situation for the people of Nigeria and the Niger Delta untenable and even deadly, the fact of the matter is that without proper foresight Nigeria's whole economy will completely collapse without oil revenue.

 

Delta Blues - Part 1

Imagine, if you will, living in a densely populated slum in the capital city of a country with the 10th-largest supply of oil of any country in the world -- and having a pipeline of "black gold" run through your neighborhood. Then imagine crooked oil companies puncturing the line to illegally siphon the oil into a truck for the black market, and then leaving the pipeline to leak. Stuck in an impoverished situation and with a window of opportunity to collect the valuable petroleum, hundreds of people crowd around the hole while filling containers of all sizes with hopes of either selling the fuel or using it themselves to cook food. It is a chaotic scene at best, and that is before there is an accidental spark or someone lights a cigarette and the entire scene goes up in a huge ball of flame. Hundreds of men, women, and children are incinerated instantaneously in the inferno, along with homes and shacks in the immediate vicinity.

The sad truth is that not only has this exact circumstance happened in Nigeria, but it happens there with unfortunate regularity. According to the BBC, at least 1,750 people have lost their lives in similar pipeline explosions in the past 10 years. Over 250 people were burned alive -- most beyond recognition -- in Lagos, Nigeria in December 2006, the latest of this series of grim "accidents."

Nigeria, with an estimated reserve of between 16 and 35 billion barrels of petroleum in the ground, receives almost 98% of its export revenue from oil. Flush with oil and needing the technology of the modern oil industry to harvest the valuable resource, it is little wonder that the Nigerian government has long considered multinational oil corporations to be their friends and partners. Since discovering oil in the 1950s in the southern region of Nigeria called the Niger Delta, Royal Dutch Shell Petroleum -- known to those of us in the "Western World" as simply Shell -- has been complicit with corrupt regime after regime in doing what they do best, making gobs money from the harvesting and sale of fossil fuels.

Generations of Nigerian people have been relegated to abject poverty as the Nigerian government and Shell Corporation executives have been raking in billions upon billions of dollars. So who is it, you may ask, who sponsors this negligence and corrupt behavior? The unfortunate answer is: US. The United States imports over 1 million of barrels of oil each and every day of the year from Nigeria. One million barrels per day.

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