January 29, 2008	Tuesday	Muharram 19, 1429

THATTA, Jan 28: Reckless oil and gas exploration in the Indus delta will degrade the local ecosystem and it may lead to an ecological disaster, harm biodiversity and hurt local people’s livelihoods, elected representatives and experts have warned.

They were speaking at a media workshop on ‘Corporate social responsibilities of oil and gas companies’ jointly organised by Participatory Development Initiatives (PDI) and Oxfam GB at the press club here on Monday.

They said that preliminary seismic surveys were already under way.

Oil exploration, they said, would deal a death blow to the Indus delta ecology, which was already on the verge of collapse.

Drilling mud and other non-dispersible and toxic fluids would also be used, which would be highly harmful for the local environment.

They said that seepage and spillage was inevitable in the course of oil exploration and production, adversely affecting the local environment, adding that oil toxicity affected the soil, plant, animal and water resources.

While ethically and legally oil and gas companies had to invest about $700,000 annually on local communities’ social development, the companies already operating in various areas of the country had failed to make any such contributions, they said.

Accusing oil and gas companies of violating the standards of the corporate social responsibility and sections of the petroleum concession agreements, they said that they were infringing the clause about providing jobs to local communities.

They said that the exploration and production agreements clearly stipulated that preference would be given to local communities in jobs and the company would also provide training to untrained people but the oil and gas companies were not providing either of these facilities to the local people.

According to the current Petroleum Exploration and Production Policy of 2007, the oil and gas companies are liable to pay royalty to the local government at the rate of 12.5 per cent of the ex-field value of petroleum. However, they said that local governments were not receiving any royalty.

They also accused oil and gas companies of depriving local communities of the production bonus which, they said, the companies were legally bound to spend on social welfare projects.

In the end, the participants demanded of the federal government to improve the monitoring of the oil and gas companies’ performance and said that local communities and their elected representatives should be members of such monitoring teams.