Angola has granted Chevron permission to dump oil waste into the ocean off the coast of Cabinda because it is exempt from the country’s environmental regulations.
According to a report from the regional investigative website Maka Angola, the local division of Chevron might discharge “at least 12,000 tons” of drill debris and 6 million liters of oil annually.
Maka Angola referenced a letter from the Angolan oil ministry to William Lacobie, the director general of Cabinda Gulf Oil Co. (Cabgoc), that was leaked. Chevron requested that the ministry extend the new discharge regulations until July 2023, and the ministry agreed.
The approval came from the oil ministry, following consultations with the regulator, Agência Nacional de Petróleo Gás e Biocombustíveis (ANPG).
Maka Angola said the letter demonstrated Chevron was engaging in “backroom deals with Angolan officials to avoid having to abide by the letter and spirit of the law.”
The authorization applies to Block 0 and Block 14, both in the northern part of Angola’s offshore, around the Cabinda exclave.
Angola adopted a zero-waste policy in 2014 under Decree 97/14, and it came into force in 2015.
There was an initial moratorium for new exploration in the ultra-deepwater, Maka Angola reported. Block 0 has water depths of up to 160 meters, while Block 14 has water depths of around 1,200 meters.
Dumping cuttings in the water has an “adverse impact… on marine life,” in addition to being a “potential hazard to human health,” Maka Angola said.
It was unclear what Cabgoc’s cuttings were made of.
Oil-based drilling fluid disposal was prohibited by the OSPAR Commission in 1987, and the discharge of untreated cuttings was prohibited in 1992. Only under “special and very uncommon conditions” may an operator dispose of contaminated cuttings.
The Ministério dos Recursos Minerais, Petróleo e Gás (MIREMPET) defended its decision to Maka Angola. Cabgoc does not have “the capacity to deal with the effluent in situ in the specific case of the Tombua-Landana Block 14”. The project, it said, is at the end of its life with limited resources remaining.
Collecting and transporting waste to Luanda or Soyo would be too expensive, it said.
