Two French associations alerted Wednesday, October 5 to the "unacceptable"
human, climatic and environmental costs
of the Total group's mega oil project including an oil pipeline of more than 1,400 kilometers through Uganda and Tanzania, and point to a
"risk of accident major oil tanker"
off the coast of Tanzania.
TotalEnergies announced in February a 10 billion dollar investment agreement with Uganda, Tanzania and the Chinese company CNOOC, including in particular the construction of an oil pipeline (the East African Crude Oil Pipeline - EACOP) of more than 1,400 kilometers linking the deposits of Lake Albert, in western Uganda, to the Tanzanian coast.
“The EACOP will be the longest heated pipeline in the world if it sees the light of day; heated to 50°C all along (...) it will transport around 216,000 barrels of oil per day, which will be exported to the international market”
, details the report by the associations Les Amis de la Terre and Survie.
“Counting the emissions caused by the transport, refining and use of this oil, this will cause the emission into the atmosphere of up to 34 million tonnes of CO2 per year, far more than the emissions of gases combined greenhouses of Uganda and Tanzania”
, criticize the associations.
“Risk of oil spill”
In Tanzania, a country renowned for its biodiversity, the pipeline will travel 1,147 kilometers to reach the Indian Ocean at the port of Tanga, according to the report.
The pipeline
“will impact the lands of nearly 62,000 people and threaten more than 2,000 square kilometers of nature reserves;
it will cover more than 400 km in the basin of Lake Victoria, one of the main sources of the Nile and the second largest freshwater lake in the world”
.
In the port of Tanga area, Total plans to build offshore oil export infrastructure.
"As the Indian Ocean is highly subject to the risk of tsunamis and cyclones, and this is increasing with global warming, the risks of a major oil accident, irreparably affecting the very rich biodiversity of the marine protected areas of this area, are extremely high
," says the report.
"The risk of an oil spill on the Tanzanian coast, prone to tsunamis due to significant seismic activity in the region, is very high"
.
"While the field investigations and reports were concentrated in Uganda, this report is based on an unpublished investigation carried out in Tanzania"
, note the associations.
"There are the same violations of the rights of the affected populations as in Uganda, even exacerbated in certain aspects"
, they denounce.