Fracking protests in Algeria

Although virtual water trade efficiently helps North African economies, other projects exploit water in the region for economic purposes. This post studies the uprisings that took place in Ain Salah to protest against a fracking project. 

Algeria is the biggest country in Africa, with a very dry South. It is the third country with the biggest reserves of shale gas in the world. To reinforce the country’s economy, the government thus decided to develop shale gas digging. In 2013, the Algerian government passed a hydrocarbon law allowing foreign and local multinationals to drill for gas on Algerian ground (Kinniburgh, 2015). In December 2014, the Minister of Energy Yousef Yousfi announced that the state-owned water institution Sonatrach had started drilling for shale gas near Ain Salah with the foreign multinational Total (Gall, 2015).

Ain Salah, also known as the “desert oasis”, is located deep in the Sahara (Kinniburgh, 2015). The southern city sits on a sensitive aquifer that supplies the oases that in turn irrigate fields of fruits and vegetables, a rare phenomenon in the desert. Beneath this aquifer are significant reserves of shale gas. When the 35,000 citizens of Ain Salah heard about the fracking project after Yousfi’s announcement, protests began. From January 2015, tens of thousands of protesters turned up daily in the rural town of Ain Salah, with children and women leading sit-ins and marches only to be met with tear gas by the police (Fig. 1, 2) (Kinniburgh, 2015). 

Figure 1: Women and children in Ain Salah as they sit-in to protest against shale gas extraction (Rondeleux, 2015)

Protesters expressed that although they lived on rich-hydrocarbon ground and provided all the labour work; the gas, water and electricity was going abroad in wealthy countries while they remained unemployed and lived in poor conditions (Aczel, 2020). This was not the mere motive behind the protests: two other important rationales motivated protestors. 

First, protestors were alarmed that the amount of water needed for fracking purposes was too significant and would deplete the aquifer that irrigated their oasis-based agriculture. Fracking, which entails hydraulic fracturing combined with horizontal drilling processes for shale gas extraction indeed requires significant quantities of water (Gall, 2015). Fracking accidents can furthermore devastate local communities and contaminate drinking water around the fracking site. 

Other than water motives, protestors were concerned with the neo-colonial discourse of the project (Aczel, 2020). The hydraulic project was supposed to be conducted by Total, a firm with French headquarters. Since France’s ban on fracking processes on French territory in 2011, Total sought alternative shale gas sources in other countries. Algeria’s needs for water investments stood as a perfect opportunity for Total (Aczel, 2020). However, Algerians did not perceive the fracking operation by Total like the government did. Algeria gained independence from France in 1952. The city of Ain Salah was furthermore already sensitive to technological experimentations as France formerly conducted nuclear tests in the city. Protestors have expressed distrust and “fear France will get too much control over [Algeria's] energy sector” (Aczel, 2020).. 

This links back to our previous post on virtual water and how again, to ameliorate the countries’ economies, North African countries become dependant on Western countries, reproducing colonial discourses (Aczel, 2020). 

Figure 2: Women leading a march to protest again shale gas extraction (Rondeleux, 2015)

In 2013 President Bouteiflika condemned the protests asserting that “shale gas is a gift from God” stirring the protestors' anger even more (Kinniburgh, 2015). During two years, the protests were supported throughout the world in Britain and in the United States, and two formal coalitions representing two dozen local councils (wilaya) were founded. Yousfi, the “shale man”, was forced to resign and halt the shale gas fracking project in Ain Salah (Kinniburgh, 2015). 

Unlike the people of Western Sahara, the voices of the people of Ain Salah were heard.