Africa and the developed world's double energy standards

Last year, Tanzania and Uganda signed a deal for the construction of what would become one of the largest infrastructure projects in Africa: the East African Crude Oil Pipeline.

Stretching over more than 1,400 km, with a price tag of $3.5 billion, EACOP would take crude oil from the Lake Albert fields in Uganda to the Tanzanian coast on the Indian Ocean and from there, to world markets.

Reserves in the Lake Albert fields are currently estimated at around 6.5 billion barrels, with some 1 billion barrels seen immediately recoverable by field operators TotalEnergies and CNOOC at a cost of $5.1 billion.

So far so good. The world needs more oil and new developments are not that abundant, really, so good for Uganda and Tanzania for making the most of their resources, including geographical location. But, of course, it’s not so simple.

A couple of months before the final deal for the EACOP was announced, a group of as many as 260 organisations wrote an open letter to 25 banks involved in the financing of the EACOP project, demanding that they withhold the money. Here’s what they wrote, among other things:

The proposed 1,445-kilometer crude oil pipeline from Hoima in Uganda to the port of Tanga in Tanzania would, if completed, be the longest heated crude oil pipeline in the world. The risks of this project to people and nature in the affected countries, and to the world’s climate have been extensively documented, including in a recent Risk Briefing for Financiers. These include: significant human rights impacts to local people through physical displacement and threats to incomes and livelihoods; unacceptable risks to water, biodiversity and natural habitats; as well as unlocking a new source of carbon emissions that will either prove financially unviable or produce unacceptable climate harm.

Note the final words — for these organisations the project was already a failure because it would either not make money because the world will not need the viscous Ugandan crude that requires a heated pipeline or because it will need it and this will result in more emissions.