The recent controversy over Kenya’s maritime boundary with Somalia has provoked all manner of conspiracy theories over why that triangle of water should be so particularly important to either country.
Some say there is plenty of fish there. Yet others consider the value of such fish to be insignificant when compared with the potential oil reserves. Assuming there is indeed “vast petroleum reserves” as one writer put it, to be found in those waters, I think that you could hardly hope to find a clearer example of an “oil curse” than this.
Somalia’s tragic history is that of a people who for many generations now have never been able to go beyond their extraordinarily strong clan and regional rivalries, and to learn to live together as a single nation. If there should be a massive inflow of cash arising from the successful auctioning of offshore oil exploration blocks, would the political leaders in Somalia really find a peaceful way to share this money?
And whereas finding oil in its designated “exclusive economic zone” within the Indian Ocean is not likely to in any way shake Kenya’s stability, all the same we have a pretty pathetic record when it comes to exploiting oil reserves. We have been hearing of the oil in Turkana county for a long time now – and have yet to see any tangible benefits from being a country that supposedly produces oil.
Oil has indeed been little more than a distraction, fuelling Kenyan dreams of instant petro-state riches, when we should be seeking other and more realistic options for powering economic growth.
But just assume that the impossible happened. Imagine that there is indeed plenty of oil at the maritime border between Kenya and Somalia, and the two countries find a way to equitably share this bounty.
We would then find that we have arrived rather late to the party, as concerns oil wealth. Crude oil is currently trading at about $80 per barrel, which is a remarkable recovery from the prices in 2020, when there was a collapse in oil prices, due to lack of demand brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic.
But the long-term future of oil is very much in doubt. The problem oil faces can be summarised in just two words: Climate change. The very survival of the earth as we know it depends on the reduction in the levels of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere, mostly through the burning of fossil fuels.
One of the lessons that the Covid-19 pandemic taught us is that it is actually much easier to tackle major global challenges through technological innovation, than by encouraging behavioural change.
Here in Kenya, there were loud demands for ‘vaccine equity’ almost from the moment that the revolutionary vaccines against Covid-19 were approved for general use.
You would have thought that once those vaccines reached Kenya, the police would have to be called out to control the crowds fighting for the opportunity to receive the life-saving jab.
But vaccine uptake has been slow, and so instead, we hear leaders pleading with their communities to ignore the conspiracy theories surrounding the vaccines and to please go out and get vaccinated.
In comparable manner, the world has for at least 100 years been dependent on an energy infrastructure that is based on the consumption of oil and gas. And efforts to get people to use less of these carbon-emitting fuels have mostly failed.
But all that is set to change.
Given the accelerated research efforts towards creating cheaper and ‘cleaner’ energy sources, it can only be a matter of time before the question of who owns what level of oil reserves, is a purely academic question.
Wind and solar power in particular have become more and more cost-efficient as alternatives to fossil fuels.
There may be truly massive oil reserves in that disputed maritime zone between Kenya and Somalia.
But by the time we are ready to exploit our share of it (if indeed we do have a share) the price of crude oil may be so low that it would not be worthwhile pumping that oil up from beneath all that water.