OIL PRODUCTION AND IMPACT ON FOOD SECURITY AND CLIMATE CHANGE

By John A. Jia, Ph.D. The 1996 World Food Summit defined food security as “when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.” So, Food Security is “the measure of an individual’s ability to access food that is nutritious and sufficient in quantity.” On the other hand, Wikipedia explains Oil and Gas Production as “the process of extracting crude oil and natural gas from underground reservoirs and bringing them to the surface for processing and distribution. It further explains that “The petroleum industry is responsible for the exploration, extraction, refining, transportation, and marketing of petroleum products.” Various components of the process listed here can have impacts on Climate leading to climate change. How then can oil and gas production have direct or indirect impacts on food security – preventing access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food meeting dietary needs and food preferences? Oil and Gas production have key activities that make it possible for it to happen if not well managed namely: •Seismic Operations – in layman’s terms, is the search for oil using various technologies to survey and ‘see’ under the ground to discover reservoirs holding the oil deep in the ground. The “surveys allow professionals to identify prospects, assess potential resources, reduce risk and even quantify reserves – in short, to make well-informed decisions that drive successful exploration efforts.” •Drilling of appraisal wells/Production Wells to confirm that what was ‘seen’ under the ground is good enough for additional investments to develop the field and recover the volumes – the discovery is in commercial quantities. An appraisal Well may be developed into a Production Well. •Field Development – involves the process of drilling, building of non-oil and gas infrastructure (NOGI) and Oil and Gas Infrastructure (OGI) for extraction, processing, handling and exporting or sale of the oil produced. •Production operations – utilization of all the infrastructure (Wells, Flowlines, Pipelines, Flowlines, Production Stations, Gas Plants, and Tank Farms including export facilities) for daily extraction of crude oil/gas, processing and sale/export. •Abandonment – loosely speaking involves management of NOGI and OGI facilities and the environment after the life of the Field. This will not be discussed in this article for lack of space for this article. All the above steps have various aspects that can interact with the environment to impact Food security and Climate change. According to FAO and others, there are 5 dimensions or components of Food Security namely: Availability, Access, Utilization, Stability and Sustainability. While many biological factors like population increase, changing diets, pests and pathogens, environmental changes, conflict, poverty/unemployment, et cetera, can reduce food security, each step involved in the Oil and Gas production can also have direct or indirect negative impacts on availability, access, utilization, stability and sustainability of food security especially in the Niger Delta of Nigeria. Seismic activities for oil and gas exploration can disrupt farming operations. The noise, vibrations, and movement of heavy machinery can affect soil structure, water flow, and crop growth. For example, in Nigeria’s Niger Delta, seismic surveys have been reported to have caused soil compaction and water contamination, reduced agricultural productivity and harming local farmers’ livelihoods. As the activities often involve the use of chemicals that may contaminate surface and ground water sources, there is potential for water contamination. Polluted water can affect irrigation systems, leading to poor crop yields and unsafe drinking water for livestock. Chemical spills during seismic surveys in agricultural areas can lead to contamination of water sources, which then impacts the health and productivity of crops and livestock. Another impact is the Destruction of Natural Habitats. Clearing land for seismic lines can destroy forests, wetlands, and other natural habitats, reducing biodiversity. This loss of biodiversity can impact pollinators, soil health, and natural pest control, which are essential for sustainable agriculture. The Amazon rainforest, a critical ecosystem for global biodiversity, has been reported to have seen significant habitat destruction due to oil exploration, threatening indigenous food systems and biodiversity. Seismic exploration can lead to the displacement of local communities, including farmers. Displaced communities may lose access to their agricultural lands, leading to food insecurity. How does this stage of Oil and Gas activity impact on climate change thus affecting food security? You have Greenhouse Gas Emissions, an occurring decimal throughout the oil and gas production value chain. Seismic activities are part of the oil and gas extraction process, which is a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. The burning of fossil fuels contributes to global warming and climate change. Methane emissions from natural gas extraction are a potent greenhouse gas, significantly more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. Seismic surveys often require clearing large areas of land, leading to deforestation and land degradation. Forests act as carbon sinks, and their destruction releases stored carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, exacerbating climate change. Example, in the Congo Basin, deforestation for oil exploration has released large amounts of carbon dioxide, contributing to global climate change. Healthy ecosystems such as forests, wetlands, and grasslands sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Seismic activities that damage these ecosystems reduce their ability to absorb carbon, increasing atmospheric carbon levels. An example is the destruction of mangroves for oil exploration which reduces their capacity to sequester carbon, thus contributing to higher atmospheric CO2 levels. Also, climate change, driven in part by fossil fuel extraction, leads to more frequent and severe natural disasters such as floods, droughts, and hurricanes. These events can devastate agricultural systems, further threatening food security. Rising global temperatures contribute to more intense droughts in agricultural regions, affecting crop yields and food availability. Drilling involves land take, utilization of drilling mud, generation of drill cuttings which may be oily depending on the depth at which the cuttings are generated. The land taken (and in some cases may be significant) is no longer available for food production. The land may have been rightly acquired but is