All eyes are on Perenco (1st September 2023) as activists across three continents in London, Moanda and La Morena demonstrate their solidarity demanding the little known multinational oil and gas giant stop polluting their communities and end fossil fuel expansion.
Many protesters in London came from Dorset, outraged by environmental problems caused by Perenco at the Wytch Farm drilling site and a recent pipeline spill at Poole Harbour which has damaged a designated site for nature conservation.
Banners were unfurled, showing demands from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Colombia to stop new oil and gas.
“PERENCO, DO NOT ENTER NGANZI or MATAMBA-MAKANZI, DRC”
“PERENCO, DO NOT ENTER LA MORENA, COLOMBIA!”
Giant “eyes” looked on as protesters waved placards showing photographs of the environments devastated by the company. A procession of the dark and scary “Oil Slickers” troupe performed and “oil” was poured outside Perenco’s offices.
Daniel Glennon, a customer service trainer from Bournemouth, added:
“I’ve come to Perenco’s London HQ today to demand they give us the full truth about the leak in Poole Harbour in March. We observed oil on the water 24 hours before Perenco admitted to there was a leak. Why did they hire private security to keep local people away from parts of the harbour and stop them from filming during the clean-up? What was Perenco trying to hide?”
Ralph Doe, a retired bookshop owner from France, said:
“I was shocked when 200 barrels of reservoir fluid from Perenco’s oil drilling site at Wytch Farm leaked into environmentally sensitive Poole Harbour,. and even more shocked when I found Perenco is harming indigenous people and causing environmental damage in 14 countries! It’s time for them to pay for the loss and damage.
Pascal Mirindi, from XR University of Goma, reports:
“For more than 20 years, Perenco has been exploiting oil in the Congo in a system of total lack of transparency. In Moanda, we find a very, very poor population alongside Perenco, which is a rich company. It is unacceptable that Perenco still manages to win more exploitation contracts in the 27 other blocks put up for sale since July 2022, not only because we fight the fossil fuel industries but because it is one of the clear examples of neo-colonialism which only steals, exploits and mistreats the Congolese population.”
Moanda is the poorest oil town in the world; 95% of the population is unemployed.
Unsafe and damaging flaring of gas is common, sometimes happening less than 200m from homes, and in some places less than 5m from roads. Moandan activists report the dumping of hydrocarbon waste on land, the presence of flares at ground level, the leakage of hydrocarbons and oil spills. Fishermen already see a decline in their catch as a result of oil pollution as well as the restrictive measures that prohibit them from approaching Perenco’s offshore facilities.
In a statement read outside Perenco’s HQ Moanda activists state:
“We ask the Congolese State to abandon the sale of other oil fields in the Moanda area and not to allow Perenco to expand its activities on the Nganzi2 and Matamba Makanzi 2 oil blocks… The supposed ‘windfall’ from oil is doing nothing to lift the people of Moanda out of poverty.”
The chilling words of a Colombian activist whose death in suspicious circumstances is under investigation read
“Don’t ever let the oil companies get in,
…they’ll kill you with a machete,
with a machete, in the middle of this beautiful savannah,
that’s how they get in and damage this land
…to exchange this beauty for $100 million is not worth it”
The world is heading for catastrophe, with climate chaos and ecological disaster becoming ever more evident. There’s still time to change course, but to do so, we must End Fossil Fuels in an equitable manner, fast, fair and forever.
Further Info:
Perenco corporate website https://www.perenco.com/
Perenco Files: the toxic world of a little-known European oil giant | Investigate Europe
About Extinction Rebellion
Extinction Rebellion Global https://rebellion.global/
Extinction Rebellion University of Goma https://www.instagram.com/xr_universite_de_goma/?igshid=NGExMmI2YTkyZg%3D%3D
Featured in Extinction Rebellion global newsletter
https://rebellion.global/blog/2023/07/14/global-newsletter-78/
Extinction Rebellion Bournemouth and Poole
COLOMBIA
Conflict Routes Web Portal report shows the effects of the Perenco oil company in Casanare, Colombia. Perenco stands out as one of the companies with the most sanctions from Corporinoquia (Environmental authority in charge of managing sustainable development) for contamination of flora and fauna.
English
https://translate.google.com/?sl=auto&tl=en&text=https%3A%2F%2Fmarthacifuentes.com%2Fportada%2F2022%2F04%2F20%2Fperenco-y-sus-afectaciones-al-medio-ambiente-y-seguridad-en-casanare-fueron-evidenciadas-por-portal-rutas-del-conflicto%2F&op=translate
Spanish
https://marthacifuentes.com/portada/2022/04/20/perenco-y-sus-afectaciones-al-medio-ambiente-y-seguridad-en-casanare-fueron-evidenciadas-por-portal-rutas-del-conflicto/
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
Toxic fumes and leaks: Perenco’s polluting oil business in Democratic Republic of Congo
UNITED KINGDOM
Oil spill at largest onshore oilfield in Western Europe was a disaster waiting to happen
ABOUT POOLE HARBOUR
Poole Harbour hosts a range of designations including SSSI, Ramsar and SPA largely due to the presence of intertidal marsh, mudflats, saltmarsh and reed habitats. It supports internationally significant populations of water birds and roosting habitat for a variety of species including red-breasted merganser, goldeneye and dark bellied brent goose. But despite its importance, the majority of the site is being impacted by water pollution, with many rare bird species already in decline. Although voluntary mechanisms have been trialled to reduce nutrient pollution, these have not achieved the desired reductions. There is a need for more robust protections to be adopted within the catchment, to improve this increasingly concerning situation
https://www.rspb.org.uk/globalassets/downloads/our-work/poole-harbour.pdf
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