By Tio Nakasole
Oil is becoming more of the global lifeblood than anyone can imagine. It is what created the fortunes of people like the Rockefellers; it is what created companies like Standard Oil, which was later dispersed to become the juggernauts like Exxon, Mobil, and Texaco.
In terms of oil deposits, a lot of the African countries possess oil in abundance, including countries like Nigeria, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Libya, Equatorial Guinea, and others. Namibia also is not an exception from the list.
Like philosophers of old would suggest, a life unexamined is not worth living. In Namibia, exploration drilling for oil and gas had taken place before independence as early as 1928, near Berseba.
Subsequently, drilling took place later in 1963, but this time around, the discovery of the Kudu gas field in 1973 by SWAKOR. Later, Namibia’s post-independence government moved quickly to intensify drilling activity from 1990 in Namibia’s four main offshore basins: the Namibe, Walvis, Orange, and Luderitz.
However, very little is known about this, which widened the gap and fouled the “atmosphere of trust and confidence between the government and the public.”
Therefore, in order to meet the concerns of communities located in the oil-rich four offshore basins, in 2021 Namibia initiated a Local Content Policy in National Upstream Petroleum, which got approved by cabinet in December 2024, to increase local capacity in the petroleum industry.
This may appear as an answered prayer, but an iota of knowledge of the process of finding oil and bringing it to use may be another hindrance. Even in emerging countries such as Nigeria, more or less, projects of this nature failed to meet or exceed such provisions due to overdependence on raw materials imported from foreign countries and the use of expatriate staff in top-level positions in the same industry.
In addition, most of the jobs and contracts have been mainly dominated by multinational oil companies or subsidiaries of foreign companies. Therefore, for Namibia to get where it wants to be, it may not be a walk in the park, as there are a series of “abracadabras” that come with local content and oil and gas in general that demand proper checks and balances.
It is against this background that, although oil discovery has become the economic lifeblood of some parts of Africa, history has taught us that it also leads to bloodshed, corruption, and cartels, and it has also formed some sort of cabal in some parts of the world. One may ponder to ask, if Namibia is currently failing to control the smoothness of the fishing sector, is the Namibian government able to handle the juggernaut of crude oil discovery and supply chain?
In spite of that, the oil and gas industry can also be more than just the discovery of a site. This industry can transform lives and livelihoods through different forms of transformation. Way back, many mining sites were turned into towns; it will also be important to turn some of these discovery sites into towns such as Luderitz and Arandis that we know today.
You may agree with me that oil and gas discoveries are not the panacea to all the challenges that are facing the country today, but through project leveraging and diversification can be a ‘thinking on the margin’ savior.
Furthermore, expanding such a site into towns will also diversify opportunity and supply chains. For example, the development of the town has a big pool of attracting service industries, such as schools, hospitals, and markets, which will contribute to a broader economic system. Otherwise, what is the point of having a big storage facility that does not empower indigenous people?
Countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Nigeria, and Canada did so and have overhauled their economic growth, urban development capacity, and strategic control. Imagine NAMRA regulating taxes and royalties of these industries from Windhoek’s office or Walvis Bay Namport’s office. An onsite government agency will always help ensure transparency and compliance and increase production due to supervision. We can give the investors the freedom to mine our wealth but not give them the autonomy to exclusively run such operations from afar.
Embarking on such an approach will also drive regional development through roads and airports, improving overall national infrastructure. Not to jump the gun, the northern region green hydrogen valley requires a port infrastructure for the export of green hydrogen and derivatives. You do not need to study production and operations management for you to master all this but mirror the successful countries such as Norway and Saudi Arabia. This is a very simple visualization that demands implementers.
Once upon a time, his excellency the late Sam Nujoma had a vision of expanding the railway to an underdeveloped Cape Fria in the Kunene region. This could have been the first port infrastructure developed in Namibia by Namibians, which would catapult trade of landlocked countries like Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and even the DRC to some of these goods and services. In tandem, the region’s breathtaking landscape could have an autopilot potential to promote ecotourism to the nearby waterfalls such as Ruacana Waterfall.
Admittedly, oil is a scarce commodity, and it is not a smooth landing pilot exercise kind of, for it to transform the country on its own. There are so many bottlenecks that Namibia needs to iron out beyond the political will. In many instances, to discover oil, a foreign investor has to bring in his oil equipment to survey our land or shores.
After discovering the contract is awarded, in most cases they bring their own expert. Therefore, this form cutting corner practices may compromise the intended purpose of such initiative, and in the end the community will suffer the consequences.
For some investors, without a contingency plan, whatever environmental damage the drilling does is none of their concern. All they want is that oil. Imagine after thirty-five years in the whole of Africa, there has been no new refinery of oil.
Either something is not known or ignored, or there is a lack of research to fill that gap. And if research studies have been done, this research finding should not be left to gather dust but customized so that the findings can be fully implemented to reflect the National Development Plans.
Namibian government needs to pull the trigger and make sure that such investors have the potential to tick all the required boxes. In the end, whether oil and gas represent an economic lifeblood type or an environmental burden largely depends on one’s vantage point; after all, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
Hence our focus on the Jerrican should not be discouraged by the heavyweight of it due to its failure elsewhere nor who handles it, but if it is carried in the right direction, that honors our energy policy, National Development Plans, Vision 2030, and global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
*Tio Nakasole is an Analyst at MONASA Advisory and Associates and can be contacted on theorastus@gmail.com.
