Exploring PWYP’s future position on the extraction of oil, gas and natural minerals

The Future of Extraction

El futuro de la extracción

L’avenir de l’extraction

Будущее добывающей

مستقبل الاستخراج

As part of the process to establish Publish What You Pay’s Global Strategy from 2020-25 we are are reflecting on key questions which are likely to have significant impact on the way oil, gas and natural minerals are exploited in the future.

In order to collate the diverse perspectives of our membership and to facilitate conversation around these questions, we are hosting a series of webinars.

On Monday the 26th of March we hosted our first webinar which explored how PWYP can address the question of whether natural resources should be extracted at all, and when extraction occurs, under what conditions.

To kick off the conversation, Diarmid O’Sullivan (6mins 45secs), the author of a paper on the future of extraction, by asking 3 important and challenging questions:

Should all the oil, gas and minerals in a country be extracted? If not, then what criteria should be used to decide whether or not an extractive project should go ahead?

What should governments be doing to prepare for the day when hydrocarbon or mineral deposits are exhausted, or can no longer be profitably exploited?

What further information needs to be disclosed by governments and companies, so that concerned citizens can hold them to account on Questions 1 and 2?

We then heard the range of very differing perspectives on these questions from some of our PWYP members from different parts of the world:

Olena Pavlenko – President of Dixit Group a PWYP member in Ukraine – focus on the right conditions for extraction (21mins 33secs)

Mtwalo Msoni – PWYP Zambia National Coordinator – focus on coal sector and the environmental (31mins 45secs)

Diana Kaissey – Executive Director of LOGI a PWYP member organization in Lebanon – focus on emerging sector and key considerations (41 mins 55secs)

Rahul Basu – PWYP member in India – focus on rethinking extractives revenues/purpose (56mins 55secs)

The webinar facilitated some energetic discussion highlighting our diverse perspectives eloquently summarised by our webinar chief provocateur, Diarmid O’Sullivan:

“there is clear diverse perspectives from the different countries depending on where they are in their engagements in extractives industries. Different countries have different space for participation in resource governance – what are the key areas of resource governance where meaningful participation is going to be most valuable?

There is clearly a tension between short term benefits and thinking medium and long term.”

Further reading on the topic

General

Two papers examining whether Intergenerational Equity has been implemented in Goa, and the implications of the findings. The first uses World Bank data, the other uses audited financial statements of extractive companies.

Transnational Governmentality and Resource Extraction Indigenous Peoples, Multinational Corporations, Multilateral Institutions and the State by the UN

Resource Extraction and Conflict in Latin America

Diarmid O’Sullivan’s paper for EITI What’s the point of transparency?

The Norwegian Model: how did the country avoid the resource curse?

What Norway did with its oil and we didn’t

What is the future we need?

Environment

Integrating environment and mineral economics in the context of Intergenerational Equity in Goa.

Charting a Course: Sustainable Water Use by Canada’s Natural Resource Sectors

Overconsumption – our use of the world´s natural resources by Friends of the Earth

Stop selling the family farm – questioning whether drilling should begin in the Arctic Refuge

Communities

Indigenous Consent and Natural Resource Extraction

Community perspectives of natural resource extraction: coal-seam gas mining and social identity in Eastern Australia

Ukraine

Sustainable Legal Framework to Regulate Transparency in Extractive Industries

Zambia

Seeking Benefits and Avoiding Conflicts: A Community – Company – Government Assessment of Copper Mining in Solwezi

Lebanon

Report on Lebanese Sovereign Wealth Fund Proposal

India

Goa Foundation representation on the National Mineral Policy