Oil News

IWUOCHANG, Nigeria — It was morning in mid-March and the wooden canoe skimmed silently across the Ibeno River in the southern Nigerian state of Akwa Ibom. A young boy and…

National protests overwhelmed Ecuador in June, with Indigenous groups mobilizing in nearly every province of the country and President Guillermo Lasso announcing a state of emergency that restricted travel and…

For years, the Tacana Indigenous people in the Bolivian Amazon have warned of dire environment impacts from oil exploration activities in their forests, located in Madidi National Park and Manuripi…

As if all the strategic and political aspects of the Putin-Bolsonaro alliance weren’t detrimental enough, underlying environmental considerations add yet another undesirable dimension.  Meeting with Putin at the Kremlin literally…

The world’s largest bank of the partially decomposed plant matter known as peat in the tropics is even more extensive than initially thought, according to a new study. The peatlands…

When feeling threatened, the Indigenous Achuar people of Peru perform a ritual war dance. Back in February, this dance came to light. Men and women gathered in the community of…

For more than a decade, Canadian oil company Gran Tierra Energy has been attempting to boost its presence in Colombia’s Putumayo department, where it operates its La Cabaña exploratory drilling…

On some days, a strong smell of oil wafts through the Indigenous Kichwa community of October 12, located in Peru’s Amazonian region of Loreto. Residents going outside to see what…

Over the past four decades, there have been more than 400 reported oil spills in the Peruvian Amazon. In Ecuador, the Amazon suffered from 1,202 spills between 2011 and 2021,…

Last month, the Democratic Republic of Congo approved the auctioning off of 16 oil blocks, at least nine of which are in the fragile peatland ecosystem of the Cuvette Centrale.…

It’s Jan. 29, two weeks after an oil spill off Pocitos Beach in the Ancón protected area, and one’s eyes and skin still burn when walking near the oil-blackened rocks.…

Adiela Jineth Mera Paz wakes up every morning with only one thing on her mind – protecting her land in Puerto Asis, Putumayo, on the Colombia-Ecuador border. However, this is…

Brazil’s plan to open vast areas of Amazon forest to the entry of deforesters via Highway BR-319 (Manaus-Porto Velho) and associated side roads such as AM-366 is undoubtedly the planned…

However horrific, the Ukraine crisis has the potential to finally nudge the world towards a long overdue clean energy future.  As one of the world’s top three suppliers of fossil…

JAKARTA — Cartel practices have been blamed for a scarcity of cooking oil in the world’s top producer of palm oil — but government policies seen as coddling the industry…

The central coast of Peru is cleaning up after a catastrophe due to a large oil spill on Jan. 15, 2022. The environmental emergency occurred after a pipe ruptured between…

QUITO, Ecuador — On Jan. 28, 2022, Ecuador’s Heavy Crude Oil Pipeline (known by its Spanish acronym OCP), ruptured, contaminating more than 20,000 square meters of the Cayambe Coca National…

For the second time in just over two months, a South African court has acted to stop a seismic survey for oil and gas off the country’s west coast. On…

ABUJA, Nigeria — On Feb. 3, the Trinity Spirit, a floating production, storage and offloading vessel, caught fire off the coast of Nigeria. Seven of 10 crew members were killed.…

At the end of January, Canadian oil and gas company Reconnaissance Africa (ReconAfrica) discreetly announced it expected approvals shortly for a second seismic survey and the drilling of three to…

ExxonMobil wants to drill 11 wells in a marine area near the estuary of the São Francisco River, in Northeastern Brazil. In the event of an accident, at least 52 conservation units would be affected, including a barrier reef that’s a priority for conservation.  

QUITO, Ecuador — Indigenous communities across Ecuador celebrated over the weekend after a historic ruling by the country’s highest court declaring that Indigenous communities have more autonomy over their territory and…

YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia — Even as a boy, Budi Leksono knew the tamanu tree had many uses. The small, hard fruit of the tree, about the size of a pingpong ball,…

Marine experts in Thailand have warned that a recent oil spill off the country’s east coast could impact sensitive underwater ecosystems that underpin local livelihoods in a nearby marine park.…

The Standing Rock Sioux tribe has withdrawn as a cooperating agency from the U.S Federal government’s ongoing environmental assessment of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) operations. Standing Rock attributed their…

On Dec. 9, the Ugandan parliament passed a bill allowing the controversial East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) to proceed. Construction can now begin according to the agreement signed between…

Achieving net-zero carbon emissions by the middle of the century was one of the goals of the COP26 U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, last November. Guyana claims to have…

A South African court has ordered oil giant Shell to suspend plans for seismic blasting along the country’s Wild Coast, in a decision hailed by environmentalists. The Dutch oil giant…

California is the world’s largest driver of oil exports in the Amazon, researchers of two environmental NGOs, Stand.Earth and Amazon Watch have found. By tracking crude oil exports from four…

This is the wrap-up article for our four-part series “The Congo Basin peatlands.” Read Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four. In the first half of December, Mongabay…