Opposition to auctioning of oil block in DRC is mounting

November 9, 2022

(3 minutes read)

The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC) government puts 30 oil and gas blocks in the country up for auction in July. The results of the bidding for the oil wells have yet to be announced. The county is estimated to have huge reserves of oil, which the political leadership wants to cash in for its development efforts

But environmentalists have a different take. The proposed auction is causing uproar and protests among them since the mining of fossil fuel may destabilize the environment since 13 of the blocks cross through protected areas and national parks. Importantly, one gas block lies under Lake Kivu, near Goma. There are also blocks lying in the Congo Basin, Africa’s largest forest cover, which absorbs some 1.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide — about 4% of global emissions. If the forest cover is cleared for mining the oil, carbon dioxide would be released into the atmosphere, environmentalists insist.

People are sharply divided about the mining of oil. Critics point out that the oil would not take their country to the growth path. They point out the case of Nigeria and Angola. Despite the huge oil mining, these countries remain poor. What has grown with oil mining, they point out, is corruption and environmental degradation. Poverty and deprivation in these countries have grown over the years, despite their oil wealth, which is a fact of life. The case is not different in Congo; oil drilling on the Gulf of Guinea has also seen little benefit flowing to the common man. Powerful environmental activists groups like Greenpeace have also warned about oil drilling. They maintained that communities of Indigenous people living close to the proposed oil blocks will inevitably be impacted if the country’s forests are transformed for drilling.