Norwegian Oil Industry in Occupied Western Sahara

A huge Norwegian research vessel has in secret travelled to the coast of
occupied Western Sahara. This weekend the Norwegian company Fugro-Geoteam
started a controversial operation to carry out oil exploration, in
defiance of the advice of the UN and the Norwegian government.


Norwatch has discovered that the Norwegian seismic survey company
Fugro-Geoteam is now taking part in an operation in occupied Western
Sahara. The undertaking is being carried out for Moroccan authorities that
are exploring for oil offshore the coast of the occupied territory. The
company has confirmed the engagement but does not wish to release details
or comments.

Morocco does not have the right to look for oil and gas in Western Sahara,
so long as it is in the disregard of the wishes and interests of the
people of occupied Western Sahara, the Sahrawis. UN legal experts
established this in 2002.

The Norwegian government also takes a critical stance to the operation in
Western Sahara and advises companies from engaging there. In 2005 the
Norwegian Government Pension Fund expelled the American energy company
Kerr-McGee from its portfolio because of oil activity in Western Sahara
and referred to the American engagement as "a particularly serious
violation of fundamental ethical norms".

But this hasn't stopped Fugro-Geoteam from proceeding with oil exploration
in exactly the same oil block as the one in which Kerr-McGee worked.

Norwatch first received confirmation of the operation from Spanish
authorities, and when Norwatch made Fugro-Geoteam aware that a story would
be published about the engagement, they confirmed their involvement. But
they still will not comment.
The exploration started on the weekend
When the Pension-Fund- blacklisted company Kerr-McGee left Western Sahara
after strong criticism from a range of investors, its smaller partner,
Dallas-based Kosmos Energy, took over. Kosmos plans to drill in Western
Sahara in a few years, in spite of both UN statements and protests from
the government in exile. The president of Western Sahara's exiled
government has called Morocco's oil plans a violation of the truce in the
area. Several observers call the Moroccan plans a threat to security in
the region.

For a long time, therefore, it has been unclear whether little Kosmos
Energy wished to continue the exploration in the occupied territory. This
can now be confirmed by Norwatch.

It is the Norwegian seismic company Fugro-Geoteam that has become an
important pawn of the Americans. Fugro-Geoteam, a firm with 50 years'
experience in geological surveys in Norway, may carry out the last and
most important analyses before the drillings may be started next year, in
violation of international law.

Fugro is using the world's largest seismic ship, Geo Caribbean, for its
operation. Fugro built the boat last year, with a price tag of one billion
Norwegian kroner (105 million euros). The trip to Western Sahara is the
ship's maiden voyage. After the vessel was completed at Bergen Mekaniske
Verksted shipyard in November, it stopped in Rotterdam at the beginning of
December 2008, to be baptised.

On 17 December the ship left Rotterdam port, and a few days ago it arrived
at the Canary Islands. On Thursday afternoon the ship was just south of
Grand Canary Island, about to leave Spanish waters, heading south toward
Western Sahara. Fugro's chartered supply vessel was last reported on
Thursday evening, also on the way south from Grand Canary, 50 km north of
Kosmos Energy's oil block.

It is therefore likely that the exploration started this weekend and that
Geo Caribbean will end the search sometime toward the end of February.
Half of the American company's oil block is located on the continental
shelf, while the other half is in deep waters. The Fugro work is probably
to take place on the part that lies in deep waters.

Secrecy
Much indicates that Fugro-Geoteam and their partners wished to keep the
operation unknown to the public. None of the partners have wanted to
comment on the operation or to supply details about what the operation
involves.

There is no information on the web pages of either Fugro in Norway or
Fugro's parent company in the Netherlands. Nor is there any information on
the pages of Thor Offshore of Faroe Islands, which owns the small supply
vessel that will follow Geo Caribbean, or on the pages of American Kosmos
Energy, which has the oil license. Even the pages of the Moroccan
state-owned oil company ONHYM, which has awarded the license, remain
silent.

"Fugro has no right to give out information about the seismic project. For
more information about the case, the only source can be Kosmos Energy",
Hans Meyer, managing director of Fugro-Geoteam, wrote in an e-mail to
Norwatch on Saturday afternoon.

But Kosmos is not providing any answers. Norwatch was already on Friday
refused by Kosmos, which asked Norwatch to contact the above-mentioned
partners.

"If you want information about this, you must contact Fugro-Geoteam or
Moroccan authorities. As a private company, we are not obliged to answer
queries about our operations", Executive Vice President and Chief
Financial Officer in Kosmos Energy, Greg Dunlevy, told Norwatch on Friday.

He refused to answer any questions about the explorations and said that
they do not need to answer questions from the media.

Thor Offshore of the Faroe Islands confirmed to Norwatch that their supply
vessel is chartered by Fugro-Geoteam for "an operation" but would not
comment any further on the issue.

Even the crews onboard the ships seem to have been muzzled. Sergio
Ramírez, an academic at the University of Las Palmas and active in the
campaign group Western Sahara Resource Watch, met two members from the
crew on Thor Offshore's supply vessel Thor Omega in Las Palmas harbour on
Thursday. The video below was taken by Ramírez. He also produced several
photos of the vessel.

"I asked the crew about where they were going to use the vessel. No matter
how I formulated the question, they would not disclose what country they
were travelling to. Each time they answered "Africa" evasively. And when I
was going to take the picture, those who were standing in front of the
vessel ran away, so as not to be photographed," Ramírez said on the phone
to Norwatch.

Until Thursday the supply vessel from the Faroe Islands rested in the
harbour of Las Palmas.

Norwatch cannot find a single news release about the case in the Moroccan
media, which otherwise are very eager to report on the development of the
country's oil sector. Repeated enquiries to the state-owned Moroccan oil
company ONHYM have not yet resulted in an answer.

On Friday afternoon Norwatch received a confirmation from Spanish
authorities that Geo Caribbean is participating in the oil industry in
"Moroccan" waters, far south of Grand Canary. The same Spanish authorities
also confirmed that the ship Thor Omega will travel in shuttle traffic
between Fugro's seismic vessel and Las Palmas to transport crew and
supplies.

Critical international law expert
The engagement will prepare what UN legal experts define as a violation of
international law. The analysis that the UN authored in 2002 concerned the
legality of petroleum industry in the same ocean region as where
Fugro-Geoteam has now started exploration.

The person responsible for the UN legal opinion, UN's former
Under-Secretary General for Legal Affairs, the Swede Hans Corell, is
critical of the continued Moroccan policy with regard to the use of
natural resources in Western Sahara.

"In terms of the situation as it is now, no activity connected to the
natural resources of Western Sahara can take place unless representatives
for the people of Western Sahara are involved in the discussion and have
approved the activities", Hans Corell told Norwatch.

He pointed out that Morocco is not the administrative power of Western
Sahara and was clearly critical of the fact that international business
participates in the exploration and extraction of natural resources from
the region.

"Even though international law is not always directly binding for
companies, it still constitutes a foundation upon which the companies must
base their ethical evaluations. It would certainly have helped solve the
conflict in Western Sahara if the companies had behaved in a socially
responsible manner and operated in line with international law", he said
on general terms.

Fugro remains silent
Norwatch has posed a series of questions about the engagement to
Fugro-Geoteam, but they refuse to answer. Norwatch has also asked for
comments about what the Norwegian company thinks about preparing the
grounds for a violation of international law, and whether they agree with
the public statements of the Norwegian Ministry of Finance in 2005. That
was the year the Ministry sold all its Kerr-McGee shares in the Pension
Fund and said that oil exploration in Western Sahara contributes to
"undermine the UN peace process" and constitutes "a particularly serious
violation of fundamental ethical norms".

"If there should any questions about Fugro's standards, we refer to our
web pages and our annual report", Meyer wrote to Norwatch.

But on their web pages there is nothing about the engagement.

Fugro-Geoteam employs about 270 people in Norway, and the main office is
in Oslo. The company is a fully owned subsidiary of Fugro Norway, which in
turn is fully owned by the Dutch parent company Fugro NV. Geo Caribbean is
registered in the Marshall Islands.

Facts: The oil industry in Western Sahara
1975-79: Morocco occupied the major part of Western Sahara, an occupation
that was condemned by the UN.
1991: The war between Morocco and the Sahrawi independence movement
Polisario ended with a ceasefire, on the premise that a referendum be held
for the Western Sahara people in 1992. But it was never held.
2001: Morocco still occupied the major part of Western Sahara and handed
out its first two petroleum licences for offshore Western Sahara to the US
energy company Kerr-McGee and the French TotalFinaElf (later Total). The
Western Sahara government in exile called the initiative a violation of
the ceasefire agreement.
2002: The UN's legal experts said that further oil exploration in Western
Sahara would be in violation of international law. Still, the Norwegian
seismic survey company TGS-Nopec was engaged to carry out the first
seismic surveys. The surveys were to be carried out together with the
Norwegian Fugro-Geoteam and the Faroe Islands company Thor Offshore. The
Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jan Petersen, criticised the
Norwegian involvement. After having received international criticism, all
three companies withdrew from further engagement in Western Sahara.
2004: Total withdrew from Western Sahara, saying there were insufficient
possibilities for oil or gas deposits. The smaller, privately owned oil
company Kosmos Energy moved in on the ownership side of Kerr-McGee's
Western Sahara block, called the Boujdour block.
After having sabotaged the UN's peace process for a referendum in Western
Sahara for over a decade, Morocco now refused for the first time to
arrange the referendum in Western Sahara. The international community
failed to react to the news.
2005: The Norwegian Government Pension Fund divested from Kerr-McGee
because its activities constituted "a particularly serious violation of
fundamental ethical norms" because they may contribute to "undermine the
UN peace process". Several investors followed suit.
2006: Kerr-McGee left Western Sahara, and the company was later bought up
by the US firm Anadarko. Kosmos Energy took over 75% of the Boujdour
block, while the Moroccan government oil company ONHYM kept the rest.
Kosmos Energy continued close collaboration with Anadarko. Whether the
collaboration also involved the Western Sahara surveys remains unknown.
January 2009: Kosmos Energy still owns a licence for offshore Western
Sahara, being the only foreign firm. Fugro-Geoteam initiates seismic
surveys for Kosmos Energy, with the recently built seismic survey vessel
Geo Caribbean. At the same time, they charter the supply vessel Thor Omega
of the Faroese company Thor Offshore. They did this even though both Fugro
and Thor had been criticised for assignments a few years ago, and even
though they said they would not do it again. Kosmos Energy plans to drill
for oil in a few years, something that could have as a most extreme
consequence that the ceasefire could collapse, causing the Sahrawis to
resume the war for Western Sahara's independence.