ReconAfrica plans to drill 12 more wells in Kavango forest

JUNGLE AT RISK … A drone im- age of the area where ReconAfrica wants to drill some of its wells. Photo: Risk-Based Solutions

CANADIAN oil and gas exploration company ReconAfrica has applied for permission to drill 12 additional wells in the Kavango East and West regions.

The company’s first three attempts in 2021 and 2022 were unsuccessful.

The proposed 12 wells come at a time when ReconAfrica’s management is facing pressure from investors who have already funded drilling three test wells with N$445 million.

Environmentalists are objecting to the proposed drilling at communal and commercial farms.
The deadline to submit input or raise opposition is 27 February.

Before any drilling can commence, ReconAfrica must obtain an environmental clearance certificate and conduct an environmental impact assessment (EIA).

The company has appointed Risk-Based Solutions as a consultant, led by Sindila Mwiya, with support from Emerita Ashipala and Samson Mulonga as environmental assessment practitioners.

With mounting debts, and N$986 million left in cash from investors, there are doubts as to whether ReconAfrica’s management would be able to afford to drill 12 more wells.

Questions around whether it is selling a dummy have been raised.

Mwiya has admitted that it is unlikely that ReconAfrica would drill 12 wells.

“It should be noted that not all of the proposed wells will be drilled, and only six may be drilled based on the current priority list and the positive outcomes of the initial drilling,” he said in the environmental management plan report dated 6 February.

He added that “even if all 12 wells were to be drilled, the total ground footprint of the operations would be approximately 36 hectares, a fraction of the two million hectares of the Kavango Sedimentary Basin”.

ReconAfrica is also seeking permission to cut through some of the forest to create roads and borrow pits for sand to be used in a construction project.

The impact on the environment is unclear, but environmentalists are concerned about the potential damage to the sensitive Kavango ecosystem.

ReconAfrica owns 90% of the Namibia oil-exploration project, while the state-owned National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia (Namcor) owns 10%.

The licence area overlaps with the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area and sits upstream from the Okavango Delta – a unique and ecologically sensitive water course.

ReconAfrica has assured the public that it would take the necessary measures to minimise the impact of drilling operations on the environment.

In a statement, non-governmental organisation Frack Free Namibia said ReconAfrica’s environmental management plan contains numerous factual and grammatical errors, and is not based on industry-wide standard practices, policies, or procedures.

Frack Free Namibia said ReconAfrica’s environmental assessment practitioner (Mwiya) continues to produce poorly researched documentation and reports.

“The environmental assessment practitioner promotes these inaccuracies and downplays the serious dangers to Namibian citizens in the communities affected by ReconAfrica’s extractive activities, exhibiting a serious disregard for their well-being,” the statement said.

Frack Free Namibia said it has demonstrated that the current ReconAfrica draft scoping report is fatally flawed and demands that it is revoked immediately.

“All petroleum exploration activities in Kavango East and West must be terminated with immediate effect,” the statement said.
Mwiya did not respond to questions sent to him.

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