The Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) prime minister announced that the government desires to discover a way to search for oil in the area of the Virunga National Park. However, the park is slated as a UNESCO world heritage site. Government officials have said that they will participate in negotiating with UNESCO to explore this possibility in a sensible fashion.
Virunga is the oldest and most bio-diverse park in the Africa. Since 1994, it has also been on a list of world heritage sites that are in danger due to problems with armed skirmishes and massive poaching that have taken a toll of its ecosystem.
The Congolese Ministry of Hydrocarbons gave separate oil concessions spanning the park’s borders to the French company Total and also to Soco International, which is a British oil company listed as a member of the London Stock Exchange in 2007.
Total promised not to look for oil inside the park limits even if its boundaries would change, but Soco has not done the same, having done a July 2014 seismic study inside the park boundaries. It plans to give to the Congolese government the results of the tests sometime in the next few weeks.
Whatever is discovered based on that study would determine how the government would grant any more permission to look further for oil in the park area.
Knowing what could be done to explore or dig for oil is vital for the area is home to endangered animals such as the mountain gorilla. Some of these live near to where Soco has been searching for oil. UNESCO says that looking for oil is not something that is compatible with the site and that if the government allows it that it may mean the park is declassified as a national heritage site because it would devalue the park.
The Congolese government is said to be considering changing the established borders of the park after hearing of this from the UNESCO convention. It is also said that Soco has been the one that brought up the possible change of the park’s border. UNESCO officials say this fact is alarming, but Soco has broadcast publicly that it doesn’t plan to lobby for the government to redraw the park’s borders.
In fact, Soco announced that it has hired the law office of Clifford Chance, to do an independent study involving the accusations that have been brought forward to this point. Due to the possible issues that Soco may have been involved in, the Church of England has said it may sell the three million pound share it has in Soco due to the alleged actions in the DRC.
The Congolese government decision appears to be hanging on the results of the Soco testing and whether the park boundaries will be changed, or parts of the park declassified as part of the UNESCO site in order to allow further oil exploration.
