Capital: Brazzaville
Eni's Congo oil sands plan under fire
Italian giant Eni is facing mounting criticism over its plans for an oil sands development in Congo-Brazzaville, a project campaigners claim could threaten one of the world's largest tropical rain forests.
Eni claimed the crude would be produced in areas of grassy savannah, and would not damage the forests.
However, the Wall Street Journal said a study to be released today cites internal Eni reports as saying more than half the oil sands exploration zone is made up of "primary forest and other highly bio-diverse areas".
The study, published by the German Green Party's think tank, the Heinrich Boll Foundation, was researched and written by a coalition of Congolese human rights organisations and Western researchers.
At issue is a technology condemned by environmentalists as polluting and out-of-synch with global efforts to tackle climate change.
Eni's project would mark the first time the process of deriving synthetic crude from oil sands has been applied on any scale outside of Canada.
Sarah Wykes, one of the authors of the report, told the Wall Street Journal: "This is a particularly dirty, carbon-intensive form of oil production and it is being planned for an area that's highly sensitive in ecological terms.
"It's just too high-risk."
Eni told the newspaper that the oil sands project would involve "no destruction of primary forest; no occupation of existing farmland; no impact on areas of high biodiversity; and no...resettlement of people".
It said whatever the conclusion of the environmental and social impact assessment it is currently conducting, "no rain forest area will be affected by the project".
Eni first unveiled its Congo-Brazzaville oil sands plans in May last year.
It received permits for two areas, Tchikatanga and Tchikatanga-Makola, that cover about 1790 square kilometres. It is believed the area could hold several billion barrels of oil.
The project has been controversial from the start. About 60% of Congo is covered by lowland tropical forests, much of it undisturbed wilderness that acts as a vital carbon sink.
Over the past year or so, Eni has been trying to establish the extent of the oil sands resource, using seismic surveys, satellite imaging and exploration drilling.
It has also been studying the potential environmental and social impact of the project, a process the company told the Wall Street Journal is ongoing.
An internal progress report cited in the Heinrich Boll study that was dated 31 March this year, that the study says was circulated to Eni senior management, said remote sensing and mapping of flora in the permit area showed that "tropical forest and other very sensitive environments of the biosphere (eg marshes) represent about 50% to 70% of the permits", according to the report, a translation of which was reviewed by the Wall Street Journal.