Opinion: South Sudan Oil and Gas sector: a blessing in disguise
Opinion,
By Paul Tethloach Dak
A South Sudanese citizen takes a close look at the leaking oil pipeline (Photo: Supplied)
December 15th, 2019 (SSNN)- When Rockefeller was asked to tell very briefly how people get rich, he replied “Some people find oil and some don’t”. (Lallon Prasad, Understanding Oil and Gas Business, version: July 2013).
The South Sudan Oil and Gas Power 2019 conference held on October 28-29, 2019 has brought to light and discussed challenges the industry is facing and some of the way forwards the young nation should considered. The chosen panel members and experts had given a very insightful views and most of their recommendations are indeed hold water…
Hon. Minister of Petroleum Eng. Awow Daniel Chuang calls for a transparent licensing agreements for those wanting to come and invest in this sector, unlike the old EPSA agreement where things were seemed gray. What this suggests is that, the new would be contracts/agreements have to clearly be spelt out and defined, thus meet some of the international standards.
The chairperson of the Petroleum and Gas Commission, Hon. Caesar on his part assured the conference that his commission will keep doing all the best it could to adequately monitoring and oversighting the operating companies to ensure that there is a compliance with the laws and other regulations guiding this industry.
Notably, other panel members have strongly suggested for a continued enhancement of better policies wherever is needed, diversification of economies derivatives such as on renewable energies, critical look on the rampant mismanagement of petroleum proceeds, etc…
All the above mentioned facts by the speakers make great sense of deal on theoretical perspective, but practically, someone somewhere has to take a gut, bold heart and mind to make these dreams becoming tangible. In other words, it’s a collective work from the highest authorities, the concerned ministry and other related players on this field to ensuring that this big dream become realistic.
1. Pollution at Oil Fields:
At the oil fields, the environment is highly polluted as has been cited by many sources: A Germany based International Non-profit Organization, ‘Sign of Hope’ has reported in its investigation that the water bodies from the above said communities is being contaminated by the traces of Lead and Barium with the salinity four times than the normal taste. According to Toxicologist, Professor Fritz Prangst; “These findings represent a threat to the population.”
However, the begging questions both Hon. Minister and Hon. Commissioner should address is which block is it that exactly being polluted and by which operating company? And what does the law of the land say about it, and which article specifically on petroleum act 2011 talks about this malpractices? Well, let’s for now try to avoid being sounded sesquipedalian at the legal framework of the industry, but firstly walk straight into subject matter.
Environmental pollution comes in two forms: one being the earth’s surface pollution which is visible by our eyes where at, pipe joints may burst due to carelessly designed, or being damaged intentionally by bandits in what so called break-in business, or through force majeure etc. This surface contamination could also be caused due to poor disposal of drilling fluids/chemicals into open pits, and once the whole land/field is over flooded during rainy season, than chance of these chemicals being washed away to far distances and creating more problems to neighboring communities by drinking them is higher.
In petroleum, are so many contaminants produce along with it during production. This include, Gas, Water, Salts, and elements such as lead, Barium, Nickel, Vanadium etc. Some of these elements are cancergenic to human health if their contents reached more than 300ppm. Therefore, the international standards stipulated that all these contaminants must be properly treated or removed from the produced water before disposal to the designated sites, otherwise, are to be re-injected down in to the same reservoir where they were produced at under sub-surface. Unless, the government of the concerned country is so serious about this from the legal perspective, oil companies do always try to drag their feet and get away with this business from spending extra billions of dollars in this fulfillment.
On the sub-surface/underground perspective; the pollution could be caused by poor cementing, casing and well abandonment procedures if engineering designs are being compromised, letting into oil and gas leaks at the weak pipe joints and this forcing the oil and gas to leave the wellbore and communicate directly with underground water, thus carrying along with it to farther distances being unseen by our naked eyes. With this mix of water and oil at underground zone, the poor and innocent neighboring communities will pump out and drink these contaminated water little knowing the presence of contaminant elements in them. As a result, one couldn’t rule out birth deformities and other related diseases at the given communities!
This brings us to an old adage: “I am enjoying my life at the cottage of Chuol the impotent”, whenever one is taking the advantage and riding others for free…
The old fairytale goes as: once upon a time there was a man called ‘Chuol the Impotent’ who was blessed with so much wealth whom he had acquired from the collection of dowries/cows of his sisters having married at those days. Chuol was supper wealthiest man, unfortunately he was missing one thing in life and that is; was an ‘impotent person’…That is to say he couldn’t reproduce his own biological children though had married to many wives. The only way to have had children was through the help of his servants who were being employed at his cottage working as casual laborers. But by the virtues of being the legal husband to these wives, the children whom were reproduced by other men were all his in accordance with the culture of the day, so he had lived happily after all:
Before the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Sudan (CPA), some of the current operating companies if not all were known even by the children of South Sudan for being one of the thorns on their buds. They used to supply weapons of all sorts to the regime in Khartoum for the displacement of millions of people, killings and destruction of properties. Their contribution to fuel the war through the search of oil is a trauma that people who had witnessed and gone through all the horrible crimes being committed at a time are still suffering at:
One might wrongly assumed that the physical exploitation at which some of these companies had driven us through was over after gained the independence in July 9th, 2011, little forgetting the environmental warfare and other malpractices taking toll at South Sudan oil sector!
Once again, to ensure that these problems are continuously monitored from happening, both the Ministry of Petroleum, and the Commission of Petroleum and Gas ought to be proactive enough to have all the required laws for quick enforcements coupled with related technical know-how handy and ready to deal with culprits just right in time. Let’s not forget the fact that investors are moving into over sea to make profits, so it’s up to the laws of such a land to protect its people from these fortune making gigantic dealers!In Alberta, Canada the government of the province has set up an independent commission in the name of Energy Utility Board (EUB) with a mandate to enforce laws, technically engages operating companies in the field by hiring talented young people, so in any case of failure to comply with the best standard practices, one should lost its license, jailed or fined in accordance with the law of the land.
In India, they have set up a so called “site restoration fund scheme” forcing any operating company to deposit a certain amount of money from the profits made by the sales of oil and gas into a designated government bank account, depending on the Reserve to Production Ratio. This money shall be used for fixing any damages the operating companies may inflicted on the sites, else have right to withdraw them at the end of the agreement. (Eighth Offer of Blocks, Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas, Government of India, 2009).
Fellows; this is all we need to do in South Sudan before the on-going environmental damages go beyond repairs! But above all, let it be our collective daily prayer that peace returns home as it’s the only mother of hope for our country to properly function as a free nation…
2. Human Resources Development Challenges:
Apart from the shortage of technical knowhow personnel in the country. However, one of the biggest challenges we face as South Sudanese is the poor use of Human Resources with this now becomes a prevailing setback at all the operating companies in the country to meet the highly anticipated best practices at this industry. It’s not a make up to see a theologies become a General Manager for pipeline, it’s not a make up to see a high school drop-out become a Section-Head of IT department, it’s not a make up to see a lab technologist become a Human Resources (HR) manager etc.
When this trend becomes a daily culture, through the influence of “my big uncle”, with whom you know rather than what you know, then, greater chance of employees to becoming mere bread-winners and only work for paycheque, while contributing nothing in terms of productivity is very high. This at the end led to nothing but redundancy and obsoleteness.
Independent Center for Recruitment (ICR): the government of South Sudan should look on to this matter very holistically, for instance establishing and instituting an independent body for transparent recruitment, job placement may indeed at the end yield positive result, rather than leaving the whole thing to the hands of Nilepet, few uncles and elites. This suggests that Nilepet should instead send its personnel to compete like any other local South Sudanese before seconded them to Joint Operating Companies (JOCs). If implemented, will reduce the prevailing culture of nepotism.
In other words, the search to address the prevailing environmental problem, the desires to recruit and train local employees in order to properly manage the industry in the future, and the dream to diversify the local economy to reinvest some of the generated petro-dollars for agriculture, mining, wildlife and fisheries and tourism, plus other socio-economics developmental infrastructures will remain an illusion.
3. Poor Compensation and Promotion Policies:
Compared with other oil and gas producing countries in the world; South Sudan local employees earn least compared to their counter expatriates. When this grievance is not fully addressed, it may force the local employees to have no choice but to do one thing, and this is leaving the oil and gas industry and looking for other sources of green pastures, such as lucrative political jobs, international NGOs jobs or elsewhere.
What this signifies is that instead of retaining, developing and pooling the experience and expertise of the local workers in order to take over the industry in future as being the core functions of HR department, chances of migrating and joining better paid industries is imminent, thus the whole processes would restart from fresh once again and again by recruiting, placing and training the newly would be local workers. This will lead the nation to none, but a cycle and indefinite projectile of oil and gas industry dominance by the foreign companies in a long term perspective.
Unless, the concerned ministry kicks in and helps revise the compensation and promotion policies, local workers may counter this by forming ‘local union’ that would act as their voice to advocate for their rights through medium like strikes etc. However, this needs a full support by the laws of the country and a backup by all relevant local authorities.
4. In conclusion:
Unless drastic measures and steps are taken by the concerned authorities to rectify these type of anomalies, our oil and gas sector will remain a resource of least expectations, while foreign investors would keep harvesting the best out of it for years coming.
The Writer is a concerned South Sudanese; holds MBA Oil and Gas Management, Bachelor of Applied Petroleum Engineering Degree, and can be reached through: ptethloach@gmail.com
Or + 211917648911
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