Race for oil pumps up deadly Uganda-Congo tension

KAMPALA – On the murky waters of Lake Albert, a deadly new race for energy resources is fanning tension in a region already scarred by genocide and a conflict known as “Africa’s World War”.

Uganda and the DRC are sitting on what prospectors believe could be oil reserves of up to one billion barrels in the Albertine Basin which they share. However, with a second deadly gun battle in two months breaking out between their troops this week, observers fear efforts to defuse the tension are failing.”There seems to be a total lack of seriousness,” an African diplomat told Reuters after attending closed-door regional security talks this month.Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Congo’s Joseph Kabila met in northern Tanzania on September 8 to discuss disputes over the border and efforts to stamp out rebels plaguing eastern DRC.Museveni sent soldiers to help Kabila’s father drive out Congolese dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in the late 1990s, after the violence and refugee crisis that followed Rwanda’s 1994 genocide set Africa’s Great Lakes region alight.When Ugandan forces invaded again to tackle guerrillas Kampala said were threatening its territory, the 1998-2003 conflict eventually drew in armies from five other countries and cost about four million lives.Ugandan commanders were accused by Kinshasa and UN investigators of looting gold, minerals and valuable tropical timber when they controlled swaths of eastern DRC’s forests.That area remains one of the most lawless on earth, and now tension has been cranked up by the search for oil.So far, it has been a one-horse race.Uganda has enlisted the help of companies from Canada, Britain and Australia to survey and drill test wells in its remote west, along the shores of Lake Albert – while insecurity has prevented Congo from doing any work on its side.The explorer at the centre of both recent shoot-outs on the lake is Canada’s Heritage Oil Corp.In August, one of its British contractors was killed in a clash between DRC forces and Heritage guards, backed by Ugandan troops.This week, the Ugandan military said it fought Congolese troops who intercepted them after UN peacekeepers impounded a Heritage exploration boat approaching the border.The company denies entering DRC waters and Uganda filed an official protest with the peacekeeping force, known as MONUC, last week calling its behaviour “provocative”.”To clear the air, the UN must explain why they captured a Ugandan vessel without communicating first,” Uganda’s minister of state for foreign affairs, Isaac Musumba, told Reuters.MONUC says it impounded the vessel briefly after it crossed the border, and says that separately that day Ugandan forces opened fire on a DRC passenger boat, killing six civilians.Heritage runs two Ugandan exploration blocks in 50-50 partnership with London-listed Tullow Oil .Between them they have drilled six onshore wells, all yielding high quality crude.They estimate reserves of up to a billion barrels.However, experts say most of that is probably under the lake, where there are better oil-bearing sediments.Getting to it will be a difficult engineering exercise involving building a barge or causeway into the lake, or – more costly – importing a type of rig designed for shallow water.The possibility of oil riches has excited many Ugandans, who have suffered crippling electricity shortages since last year.The commercial production of Albertine reserves would require political stability and security in the region.On the Congolese side of the lake, these are rare.Nampa-ReutersHowever, with a second deadly gun battle in two months breaking out between their troops this week, observers fear efforts to defuse the tension are failing.”There seems to be a total lack of seriousness,” an African diplomat told Reuters after attending closed-door regional security talks this month.Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Congo’s Joseph Kabila met in northern Tanzania on September 8 to discuss disputes over the border and efforts to stamp out rebels plaguing eastern DRC.Museveni sent soldiers to help Kabila’s father drive out Congolese dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in the late 1990s, after the violence and refugee crisis that followed Rwanda’s 1994 genocide set Africa’s Great Lakes region alight.When Ugandan forces invaded again to tackle guerrillas Kampala said were threatening its territory, the 1998-2003 conflict eventually drew in armies from five other countries and cost about four million lives.Ugandan commanders were accused by Kinshasa and UN investigators of looting gold, minerals and valuable tropical timber when they controlled swaths of eastern DRC’s forests.That area remains one of the most lawless on earth, and now tension has been cranked up by the search for oil.So far, it has been a one-horse race.Uganda has enlisted the help of companies from Canada, Britain and Australia to survey and drill test wells in its remote west, along the shores of Lake Albert – while insecurity has prevented Congo from doing any work on its side.The explorer at the centre of both recent shoot-outs on the lake is Canada’s Heritage Oil Corp.In August, one of its British contractors was killed in a clash between DRC forces and Heritage guards, backed by Ugandan troops.This week, the Ugandan military said it fought Congolese troops who intercepted them after UN peacekeepers impounded a Heritage exploration boat approaching the border.The company denies entering DRC waters and Uganda filed an official protest with the peacekeeping force, known as MONUC, last week calling its behaviour “provocative”.”To clear the air, the UN must explain why they captured a Ugandan vessel without communicating first,” Uganda’s minister of state for foreign affairs, Isaac Musumba, told Reuters.MONUC says it impounded the vessel briefly after it crossed the border, and says that separately that day Ugandan forces opened fire on a DRC passenger boat, killing six civilians.Heritage runs two Ugandan exploration blocks in 50-50 partnership with London-listed Tullow Oil .Between them they have drilled six onshore wells, all yielding high quality crude.They estimate reserves of up to a billion barrels.However, experts say most of that is probably under the lake, where there are better oil-bearing sediments.Getting to it will be a difficult engineering exercise involving building a barge or causeway into the lake, or – more costly – importing a type of rig designed for shallow water.The possibility of oil riches has excited many Ugandans, who have suffered crippling electricity shortages since last year.The commercial production of Albertine reserves would require political stability and security in the region.On the Congolese side of the lake, these are rare.Nampa-Reuters

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