A Dam Too Far in Laos

A Dam Too Far in Laos

Click on the link to get more news and video from original source: http://www.internationalrivers.org/resources/a-dam-too-far-in-laos-7925

By: Melinda Boh

Date: Friday, April 12, 2013

• This article originally appeared in Asia Times Online.

VIENTIANE – It was once referred to by US magazine Newsweek as a “kinder, gentler” type of dam. Since the Nam Theun 2 hydropower dam commenced commercial operations in 2010, the World Bank and other proponents of the multi-billion dollar power project have trumpeted it as an economic and social development success story for host country Laos.

But with the negative publicity and diplomatic tussles now focused on the proposed US$3.5 billion Xayaboury dam, which if built promises to hurt downstream communities and the environment in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, Nam Theun 2′s emerging failures have largely escaped critical scrutiny.

In particular, there are rising indications that Nam Theun 2 and its massive 450 square kilometer reservoir are responsible for massive amounts of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, amounting to as much as one million tons of methane and carbon dioxide per year, according to recent independent academic studies, including a statistical assessment produced by the US’s Duke University.

If accurate, that figure is substantially higher than the level of emissions initially estimated in the project’s environmental impact assessment. Researchers from Toulouse University in France have concluded that Nam Theun 2 produces in excess of 40% of the GHG that would be emitted from a coal fired power plant of equivalent energy output, and far more than a natural gas-fired plant.

Hydropower proponents have long argued that dams like Nam Theun 2 represent a clean and green source of energy that contribute to economic development. According to the Nam Theun 2 Power Company’s website, the 1,070 megawatt power producing dam has made a wide range of positive contributions to local communities, including improvement in rice yields, better health care, and the development of small businesses, among other alleged trickle down benefits.

Recent scientific studies of tropical climate dams such as the Nam Theun 2 show such claims are often more corporate social responsibility propaganda than grass roots reality. The World Bank, Asian Development Bank and other major backers of Nam Theun 2 had earlier faced critical questions about the dam’s design, resettlement of local communities and alleged corruption related to logging and biomass clearance of the construction site.

Young children in a house on the Nakai Plateau which was inundated by the Nam Theun 2 Dam. Photo courtesy of Virginia Morris & Clive Hills

After three years of commercial operations and a vigorous public relations campaign, the dam is now contributing to wider, more intractable problems. These include emerging evidence that resettled villagers have resorted to poaching and illegal logging to sustain their communities as well as reports from the European Union-sponsored Global Climate Change Alliance that Laos has recently become a net emitter of GHG after previously serving as a valuable global carbon sink.

These problems have emerged in clear view while the World Bank-affiliated International Financial Corporation (IFC) cites the “success” of Nam Theun 2 to justify offers of new grants and policy assistance to the Lao Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) to support further hydropower development across the country.

Unquestioning mantras of how dams promote poverty alleviation have recently appeared more regularly in the state-dominated Lao media, coincident with the signing of new dam-related contracts. The IFC’s offer of US$2.4 million in financial assistance for dam development also comes amid rising speculation among Vientiane-based independent observers of a significant surge in corruption at the MONRE.

In late March, World Bank vice president for sustainable development Rachel Kyte and regional director John Rome announced while visiting Indonesia that energy renewables and conservation were “vital” to combat rapidly escalating GHG emissions that contribute to climate change. Such statements, however, indicate a disconnect between the World Bank’s environmentally conscious public statements and the affiliated IFC’s lending activities. They also raise questions about the integrity of the World Bank’s existing external monitoring role over Nam Theun 2′s implementation.

Contrary to their clean and green image, hydropower dams are a larger source of GHG emissions than generally recognized. Most dams only measure their net emissions, or the GHG emissions measured at the surface of their reservoirs. A more holistic measure pioneered by Phillip Fearnside at the National Institute for Research of the Amazon in Brazil and now used by many scientists and environmentalists takes into account a dam’s entire life cycle, including GHG emissions caused by related deforestation, land excavation, and carbon created during the production of dam-related construction materials.

Dams in tropical climates such as Laos’ Nam Theun 2 produce especially high levels of methane emissions, which are thought be as much as 20-21 times more potent in preventing infrared radiation from escaping the planet and account for as much as one-third of GHG-driven climate change. Independent scientists and environmentalists estimate that the Nam Theun 2′s massive 450 square kilometer reservoir will continue to emit methane into the atmosphere for at least a century, regardless of when the dam stops producing power and is decommissioned.

Katy Ashe, a PhD candidate in physics at Stanford University in the US, wrote in her recent dissertation that “the tropics are especially a bad place for reservoirs to occur because the higher temperatures and flooding of large amounts of biomass leads to high levels of methane production over the lifetime of the dam. It has been estimated that artificial reservoirs that have been created in the tropics could be emitting about 64 megatons of methane each year, which would account for 90% of the methane emissions that occur in the tropics.”

Methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide are now literally bubbling up from uncleared, rotting vegetation in Nam Theun 2′s reservoir. Because the dam’s reservoir is largely anaerobic with negligible levels of dissolved oxygen, the water is toxic to aquatic life and has accelerated to a potentially debilitating degree the amount of iron sedimentation in the dam’s outlet channels.

Tropical methane emissions could grow exponentially if Laos makes good on its IFC-promoted dam-building aspirations. Lao officials have indicated hopes to build another 124 dams across the county, leading to a potential 7,500 net megatons of new methane emissions per annum, according to independent scientific assessments. Already dams like the China-backed, Sinohydro-built Nam Lik have had to evacuate nearby villages as methane and hydrogen sulfide emissions posed risks to human health.

As protests and opposition to dams grows in the developed world and in developing countries where civil society groups are allowed a voice, hydropower proponents and their associated financiers are increasingly shifting their dam-building ambitions to underdeveloped totalitarian states like Laos, where protesters against state-led development schemes are habitually arrested and often disappeared. Economic reports from McGill University in Canada have recently questioned the reality of benefit sharing from state development projects in nations such as Laos where the people have no rights.

On March 14, 2005, more than 150 Thai villagers gathered in front of the World Bank’s Bangkok headquarters to protest the Nam Theun 2 Dam in Laos. Photo courtesy of Premrudee Daorung

“It seems that opposition to damming in one place is more fluidly than ever leading to a fairly simple displacement of damming activities to more receptive areas nearby,” said Jackson Ewing, an academic at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, in email correspondence with Asia Times Online. He cited the shift in dam-building activities from places like Thailand, where civil society has in recent years strongly opposed such projects, to Laos, where the government brooks no dissent.

Underdeveloped nations like Laos have only recently become net emitters of GHG, due mainly to unchecked rampant deforestation including massive land areas cleared for dam-building. Those emission figures, however, will grow enormously if Laos builds another 124 new dams, as government officials have outlined in recent hydropower development plans. To compound the problem, the lands cleared for dam reservoirs will destroy more old growth forests capable of sequestering carbon dioxide.

Clogged potential

Hydropower dams on the scale of Nam Theun 2 generally have a productive life span of between 20 to 30 years. However, Nam Theun 2′s productive period may be much shorter than originally envisioned as preliminary surveys apparently failed to account for the area’s specific geology.

Typically environmental impact assessments do not weigh the potential for seismic activity or other geological factors. The fact that rocks around the Nam Theun 2′s reservoir contain high levels of iron was apparently overlooked by the dam’s designers and engineers. According to an informed source who spoke on condition of anonymity, Iron leachates are now increasingly clogging Nam Theun 2′s outlet channels.

“Currently they are losing around five days of generating capacity per year due to narrowing of the channels,” the source claimed. “They have tried acid in the heat exchangers but the effect is negligible. If the dam was not almost completely anaerobic then it would be less of a problem as [the iron] would oxidize and be carried away. But the iron-containing sludge settles on the bottom near the outlets. I can’t imagine the dam has much life left in it.”

Nam Theun 2 Power Company’s official website offers a more upbeat assessment of the dam’s lifespan, saying that the Lao government and private shareholders will operate the project for the “first 25 years of its operation”. It’s unclear if the nine international commercial banks, including ANZ, BNP Paribas, ING and Standard Chartered, and seven Thai commercial banks, among them Bangkok Bank, Kasikornbank and Siam Commercial Bank, providing Nam Theun 2 with long-term loans are aware of the dam’s apparent mounting technical difficulties related to iron-clogged outlets.

At this early stage of its hydropower development, Laos has made no financial provision for decommissioning dams, a process that in some cases can be more expensive than actual construction. Moreover, even after dams have stopped producing power their associated reservoirs often continue to emit methane and other GHG for many decades, as biomass continues to degrade and is washed down into the reservoir from surrounding areas. The World Bank has admitted to significant landslides and slumping around Nam Theun 2′s reservoir.

Diminished returns from the dam’s operations will likely mean even less trickle down of benefits to the local population. Jared Bissinger, a PhD candidate at Australia’s Macquarie University, has observed broadly that economic development based on natural resource extraction and energy, the model now being promoted in Laos, seldom if ever contributes to broad-based economic well-being. “It’s not that the resource industries and the extractive industries are in and of themselves bad. It’s just that they require good governance, and that’s the missing link.” he recently wrote.

Others see potentially corrupt motivations for dam-building in Laos. “I think the only reason that Laos builds so many dams is so they can cut the trees legally,” an environmental scientist based in Bangkok who referred to herself only as ”Miss Nah” told Asia Times Online. “All the high-value trees were taken from the [Nam Theun 2 site] but saplings and low-value trees were left behind as the profit from potential sales did not warrant the effort of removal.

If Laos follows through on its proposed 124-dam building spree, Phonesack Vilaysack, one of the country’s most renowned loggers, will be well-placed to clear the areas for construction. His Laos-based construction and timber company, the Phonesack Group, profited from the trees cut for Nam Theun 2′s construction, according to the Environmental Investigation Agency, which has reported in-depth on his company’s alleged deforestation activities.

There is emerging evidence that villagers resettled from the Nam Theun 2 reservoir site onto poor quality lands elsewhere have assisted the well-connected Phonesack Group to log forests on the Nakai Plateau where they were relocated. According to a foreign academic familiar with the situation who accompanied the World Commission on Dams Panel of Experts to Laos last year, villagers in the area were illegally cutting trees to sustain themselves.

“We asked a lot of questions, and found the people were illegally logging the rosewood and other high-value trees to make a living. They said they sold the trees to Phonesack [Group]. Other people said they were poaching endangered species of animals and birds for sale to China and Vietnam,” said the academic, who requested anonymity. The Phonesack Group did not respond to messages seeking comment for this article.

In March, the Phonesack Group signed a memorandum of understanding with the Lao government to undertake an 18-month feasibility study for another large hydroelectric dam project, Nam Theun 1, in the lower part of the same watershed as Nam Theun 2. The proposed dam has already courted controversy as it would require the deforestation and inundation of thousands of hectares of the Nam Kading National Protected Area, a globally significant biodiversity hotspot. It would also force the resettlement of some 10,000 people from valley communities.

Phonesack Vilaysack is related to one of Laos’ leading political families, the Pholsenas, and is viewed as ”untouchable” by Lao people familiar with his company’s activities. That’s in part because the Pholsenas are so strongly represented in the Lao government.

Khempheng Pholsena, one of Phonesack’s relatives, was formerly a vice president of the Asian Development Bank and Lao vice foreign minister before he was given responsibility to oversee the country’s national hydropower development plans. His wife, Madame Khempeng, is now minister to the Lao prime minister’s office. Sommad Pholsena is currently minister of public works and transport while Phonethep Pholsena is president of cultural and social affairs committee of the National Assembly.

Nam Theun 1 was scratched from Laos’ national power development strategy in 2004 because it was considered economically unviable from a cost perspective. Now resurrected, the dam would be situated in the verdant Nam Kading protected area, opening one of the country’s last genuinely wild areas to poachers and government-linked loggers.

Despite its large land mass, Laos has very little arable land due to mountainous terrain and an increasingly fragile environment. Estimates of land suitable for farming are often put at around 6%-10% of the country’s total area. Many of those areas are situated in river flats which are often inundated by reservoirs, or other downstream areas that suffer from regular bank erosion due to the on-off surges of water caused by existing upstream dams.

The same land squeeze applies to local communities that are resettled to make way for dams. “It’s getting hard, almost impossible, to find suitable replacement land for resettled communities,” said Lao hydro-engineer Doavanh Khamsouth while working on an unrelated dam project in northern Laos.

“We ended up sending the people on our project back up the mountain. Frankly speaking they had been sent down to the valley so the forest could be logged, then they had to move again as their valley was going to be flooded. I really don’t think we can offer a good livelihood for them. We have offered them cows as they can’t grow rice, but there are no vets or enough grass for the cows. The people who suffer do not have dishwashers or air conditioners. It’s only the wealthy who benefit from hydropower.”

Melinda Boh, a pseudonym, is an independent journalist.

More information: 

• Dirty Hydro: Dams and Greenhouse Gas Emissions, International Rivers Fact Sheet
• Advancements in the Field of Reservoir Emissions Research, International Rivers Report
• Fizzy Science: Loosening the Hydro Industry’s Grip on Reservoir Greenhouse Gas Emissions Research, International Rivers Report
• Bibliography of Key Scientific Articles and Publications on Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Dams and Reservoirs

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A dam too far in Laos
By Melinda Boh

Click on the link to get more news and video from original source: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/SEA-01-120413.html

VIENTIANE – It was once referred to by US magazine Newsweek as a “kinder, gentler” type of dam. Since the Nam Theun 2 hydropower dam commenced commercial operations in 2010, the World Bank and other proponents of the multi-billion dollar power project have trumpeted it as an economic and social development success story for host country Laos.

But with the negative publicity and diplomatic tussles now focused on the proposed US$3.5 billion Xayaboury dam, which if built promises to hurt downstream communities and the environment in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, Nam Theun 2′s emerging failures have largely escaped critical scrutiny.  More

Laos: Mekong giant catfish, other species threatened by Laos dam

Mekong giant catfish, other species threatened by Laos dam

February 6, 2013 2:12 pm

Click on the link to get more news and video from original source:  http://www.nationmultimedia.com/aec/Mekong-giant-catfish-other-species-threatened-by-L-30199469.html

Photo: EPA

A planned dam on the Mekong River in Laos promises to disrupt the reproductive cycle of the giant catfish, one of the world’s largest freshwater fish, but experts disagree on how best to help it.

The Xayaburi hydroelectric dam will stand in the way of the Pangasianodon gig as, thought to migrate hundreds of kilometres from the Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia to spawn near Chiang Khong in northern Thailand, after passing through Xayaburi province in northern Laos.

Cambodia and Vietnam, downstream of the project, have expressed concern over potential impact on fish migration and sediment flows.

Both countries have urged that the 3.5-billion-dollar dam – the first on the Lower Mekong – be postponed until the impact has been thoroughly evaluated.

Studies are underway, but Laos and its Thai partners are proceeding with construction, scheduled for completion in 2019.

The design includes a fish ladder: a series of watery shelves alongside the dam that allow migrating species to make their way upstream and past the obstacle.

But experts fear the giant catfish, which can grow to 3 metres and300 kilograms, will be unable to use it.

“Giant catfish need deep water to migrate,” Naruepon Sukumasavin, fisheries ecology expert at Thailand’s Department of Fisheries, said. “It will be impossible for the catfish to pass.” Lao officials claim to have adapted the design for larger fish.

“A lot of experts suggested that giant catfish move at the bottom of the river, and thus migration, if any, would be at the bottom of the Mekong and that’s why a fish lift was added to the system,” said Viraphonh Viravong, vice minister of energy and mines.

Fish lifts are located in the centre of the waterway, and work by mechanically hoisting the fish in a container of water to the top ofthe dam.

“I don’t think it will work,” said Naruepon. “It’s not like salmon that come thousands at a time. The giant catfish comes one or two at most, and how are you going to get it in the lift?” Experts say they still know very little about the migratory or mating habits of the giant catfish. But they agree the critically endangered species is vulnerable to changes in its habitat.

The population in the Mekong River has fallen 90 per cent over the past 50 years, due mainly to over fishing, according to Zeb Hogan, a large-fish expert at University of Nevada in the United States.

“The Mekong giant catfish is one of the most, if not the most, vulnerable to dams like the Xayaburi,” Hogan said.

Its sensitivity makes it a litmus test for other species in the river, ranked as the world largest inland fishery with a harvest of2.5 million tonnes annually, valued at about 3.6 billion dollars.

“The very real danger is that the Mekong giant catfish is the tip of the extinction iceberg, and that populations of many other species, including the most important fisheries species, will decline as more and more dams are built on the mainstream Mekong,” Hogansaid.

In Thailand, the fisheries department has had a successful breeding programme with catfish caught at Chiang Khong since 1984.

Over the past three decades, it has restocked the species in the kingdom’s reservoirs, rivers, lakes and even fish-farms.

Unlike Cambodia and Laos, where it is illegal to catch or eat, the giant catfish features widely on Thai menus, although fishing it fromthe Mekong itself has been banned for the three years.

“There are plenty of giant catfish harvested, in fact, we have an over-supply,” Naruepon said. “Everyone eats the catfish lemon grass soup, and fried spicy catfish.” But while the restocking program has succeeded, there is still no evidence that the giant catfish is reproducing naturally in the new habitats, and conservationists remain skeptical.

“The major flaw of nearly all captive breeding programs is that they fail to restore wild populations in the absence of a more comprehensive plan, including restocking, fisheries management, maintenance of environmental flows, and habitat restoration,” Hogan said.

“In the absence of a healthy, well-managed river, most captive breeding programs are a short-term solution to avoid species extinction.”

Risk and Reward – Better communication between governments and investors

Risk and Reward

Better communication between governments and investors is the best way to ensure that costly projects don’t get sidelined by risk factors.

Click on the link to get more news and video from original source:  http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/economics/332992/risk-and-reward

About the author

Writer: Nalin Viboonchart

• Published: 28 Jan 2013 at 10.15
• Newspaper section: Asia focus

Protesters who fear the Xayaburi dam on the Mekong River in Laos will ruin the fishery demonstrate in Bangkok.

The developing Southeast Asian region has never been so attractive to investors. From the opening of Myanmar, to hydropower in Laos or the rise of Indonesia, compelling cases exist for pouring money into the region.

But where there are opportunities, there are also risks and uncertainties, particularly in developing countries. Billions of dollars can go for naught at the end of the day because of changes in government, changes in regulations or arbitrary decisions. Opaque legal systems and corruption are also major headaches for foreign investors.

For small and medium enterprises, a loss arising from an unforeseen risk event can be fatal, which may explain why most feel safer at home. But even large corporations with strong financing, connections and access to legal expertise are not immune when they go abroad.

Just ask the Thai coal miner Banpu Plc, which in 2011 had to divest all of its shares in the Daning mine in China for US$669 million, after the Beijing government decided it wanted coal mines to be operated and owned by Chinese companies.

The Daning coal mine was operated by Shanxi Asian American Daning Energy Co, in which the Banpu subsidiary AACI SAADEC (HK) held a 56% stake. The company has two coal mines, Gaohe and Herbi, left in China.

A Chinese company faced a similar fate when there was a change in policy in Myanmar. In 2011, the Myanmar government suspended the construction of the Myitsone hydropower dam on the Irrawaddy River for environmental impact reasons.

The project worth $3.6 billion was being built by China Power Investment Corporation (CPI) and had been touted as the 15th largest hydropower dam in the world.

Italian-Thai Development Plc (ITD), Thailand’s largest contractor, last year had to suspend plans to build a 4,000-megawatt coal-fired power plant in Dawei in Myanmar, also on environmental grounds.

The Myanmar government is likely to change the fuel source of the plant to natural gas, but a decision has not yet been made.

Environmental concerns also surround the Xayaburi hydropower dam on the Mekong River in Laos. Green activists, villagers living downstream on the Mekong, as well as the government of Vietnam, all believe the dam could do irreparable harm.

The project is still going ahead but operator CK Power, a subsidiary of SET-listed Ch. Karnchang, has faced delays and costs of billions of baht for additional construction. The work includes a fish ladder and special channels to help reduce environmental impact.

Contract enforcement is another risky area for businesses, as the German company Walter Bau found in Thailand. A shareholder in Don Muang Tollway Plc, it sued the Thai government for breaching the expressway operating contract after the government ordered the company to cut tolls to 20 baht and constructed a local road as an alternative to Vibhavadi Rangsit Road, resulting in reduced revenues. Walter Bau won the arbitration award and the Thai government has to pay around 30 million euros.

The long legal battle between the Laotian government and the Thai company Thai-Lao Lignite (TLL) is another case. The Laotian government terminated power plant development contracts with the Thai company in 2006, citing a lack of progress. The company contested the case and an arbitrator ruled in 2010 that the Laotian government had terminated the contract improperly. It ordered Vientiane to pay US$57 million in compensation to the Thai company.

The Laotian government appealed by submitting new evidence to the court in Kuala Lumpur (arbitration cases often are handled in neutral third countries). The Malaysian court ruled that the arbitrators had exceeded their jurisdiction. The case is likely to drag on for some time yet.

James Berger, the lawyer representing TLL, said the improper termination of concessions would hurt foreign investors’ confidence in Laos, which badly needs large sums from abroad to develop its resources.

When all is said and done, however, opportunities in this part of the world appear to outweigh the risks, if statistics are any guide.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows in East and Southeast Asia in 2011 totalled $335.5 billion compared with $294.1 billion in 2010, according to the World Investment Report 2012 by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad). It has forecast FDI of between $440 billion and $520 billion in the region this year, and $460 billion to $570 billion next year.

Some observers believe risks and uncertainties are easing in Southeast Asia, though there will always be isolated cases.

Noppol Milintanggoon, president and CEO of Ratchaburi Electricity Generating Holding (RATCH), Thailand’s largest private power producer, says proper contracts are a key. “If we secure contracts and the details are clear enough, it is safer for both the public and private sectors,” he said.

However, he admitted that even when contracts with state entities exist, it is businesses that take the risks, so they need to think about solutions.

RATCH is a partner with ITD in the Dawei power plant and it is still waiting for the Myanmar government to clarify what kind of plant can be built and what kind of fuel it will use.

“I don’t see this as an uncertainty but as a challenge for us,” he said. “Myanmar has just opened up and is in the developing process. We have to wait for a clear policy and development direction of this country.”

As a power producer, RATCH is always looking at new power projects in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS), particularly in Laos and Myanmar. Mr Noppol said the risk factors include laws and regulations, investment incentives and promotion, tax treatment, government understanding, and acceptance from local residents.

“The risks and uncertainties do exist. We have to evaluate these and find ways to mitigate the risks that might affect the projects,” he said.

Mr Noppol said his company spent a lot of time communicating with government officials to ensure that everyone understands its plans. The Asian Development Bank agrees that this is one of the best ways to reduce risk.

The more both sides collaborate and commit to completing investment projects, the fewer risks and uncertainties the projects will face, said Arjun Goswami, director for the Regional Cooperation and Operations Coordination Division in Southeast Asia for the ADB.

“Collaboration and commitment are the key words to mitigate risks and uncertainties in investment elsewhere,” he said. “The public-private partnership scheme can be used to complete development projects. I do believe that the situation is better than in the past.”

In his view, the GMS countries need investment from outside to develop energy and infrastructure, so their governments should support and smooth the way for private companies.

At the same time, private companies have to evaluate their risks and factor them into their investment budgets.

Mr Goswami said the involvement of international organisations such as the ADB and the World Bank, sometimes with financing aid, could help secure investments  in some cases.

He cites the successful example of the Nam Theun 2 hydroelectric dam, in which the main players were the Laotian government, a Thai contractor, the ADB and the World Bank. The two international organisations guaranteed the project, citing development needs. The 1,070-MW plant costing $1.4 billion began supplying electricity to Laos and Thailand in 2010.

A region-wide commitment is also crucial to safeguard the projects. At an ADB-sponsored conference in Nanning, China last month, GMS ministers agreed to establish a Regional Power Coordination Centre. The agreement will lead to investments that will strengthen the regional power grid, providing backing for any projects that meet this goal, added Mr Goswami.

PTTEP keeps close eye on conditions in Algeria

The violent end to a hostage taking this month at a gas plant in Algeria is a stark reminder of the risk that terrorism poses, with energy and resource companies often seen as targets.

Thailand’s PTT Exploration and Production Plc is among the energy companies with operations in Algeria, though they are far from In Amenas, the scene of this month’s deadly events.

PTTEP will not invest in any high-risk areas unless it is satisfied that it can deal with all eventualities, says president and CEO Tevin Vongvanich.

“Having a risk management solution is the key factor for us. … If we can’t have measures to cope with extraordinary situations such as terrorism in risky areas, we will not risk our human resources and our money,” he said.

Islamist militants on Jan 16 seized hundreds of hostages at the Tigantourine gas field, operated by Statoil of Norway, BP and the Algerian state oil company Sonatrach at In Amenas, 1,300 kilometres south of Algiers. By the time the Algerian military routed the militants four days later, at least 38 foreign hostages were dead along with 29 extremists.

Mr Tevin says that before PTTEP starts any new projects, it assesses the risks not only to its own personnel and investment, but also the country, community and environmental risk.

All of the risks are evaluated to determine whether there is a management solution. If it is confident that it can manage risk, only then will it begin an economic value assessment.

PTTEP he says, purchases security information from two or three sources and uses it to rate the security levels in the area where it operations.

It divides security risk into two parts: risk in the country and in the project area. The latter has four levels: green if the area is considered safe; yellow for possible risk; orange if there is danger but not directly affecting PTTEP’s project site; and red if there is direct danger to the site.

“The security levels are assessed routinely and can be adjusted depending on the current situation,” he said.

PTTEP has two onshore exploration and production blocks, 433 and 416b covering 5,378 square kilometres, in the Hassi Bir Rekaiz Permits in eastern Algeria. PTTEP and Sonatrach hold 24.5% each and China National Offshore Oil Corporation holds 51%.

Mr Tevin said the company’s operations were currently rated orange as the area where the hostage crisis took place was 500 kilometres away. Its security measures meet international standards, he said.

He could not elaborate on the measures, citing security reasons.

“Some of our jobs are in dangerous zones,” he said of the company’s worldwide operations generally. “Our staff know this well. It is our duty to do whatever we can do to safeguard our people and make them confident to work in such areas.”

Vietnam and Cambodia tell Laos to stop $3.5bn Mekong River dam project

Vietnam and Cambodia tell Laos to stop $3.5bn Mekong River dam project

Food security issues lead to disagreement over concerns that dam will hit livelihood of tens of millions

Click on the link to get more news and video from original source:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/18/vietnam-cambodia-laos-mekong-dam

• Reuters
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 18 January 2013 07.50 EST

An abandoned toilet bowl sits on steps on the banks of the Mekong river, as a Laos fisherman fishes, at the river front of Vientiane. Photograph: Barbara Walton/EPA

Vietnam urged Laos to halt construction of a $3.5bn (£2.2bn) hydropower dam on Mekong River pending further study, environmental activists said on Friday.

Cambodia, downriver from the Xayaburi dam, accused Laos of failing to consult on the project, activists said. The Mekong River commission (MRC), made up of member states Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand, held a three-day meeting in northern Laos to discuss river development projects.

The dam in northern Laos, the first of 11 planned for the lower Mekong River running through south-east Asia, threatens the livelihood of tens of millions who depend on the river’s aquatic resources, activists say.

“Vietnam requested that no further developments on the Mekong mainstream occur until the … dams study agreed upon at least year’s council meeting is completed,” International Rivers, an NGO devoted to river conservation, said in a statement.

“The Cambodian delegation asserted that Laos had misinterpreted the Mekong agreement.” Officials from Cambodia and Vietnam were not available for comment.

The MRC is bound by treaty to hold inter-governmental consultations before dams are built. But members have no veto.

“In the absence of an agreement, other countries can disagree if they like but this can’t stop Laos,” said Jian-hua Meng, a specialist in sustainable hydropower at the World Wildlife Fund. “The role of the MRC is now being questioned along with the level of investment put in the organisation.”

In December 2011, MRC member states agreed to conduct new environmental impact assessments before construction proceeded, but last August Ch Karnchang PCL, the Thai construction company behind the project, said it had resumed work.

A groundbreaking ceremony in November signalled the formal start of construction, said Meng.

Ch Karnchang’s 50%-owned subsidiary, Xayaburi Power Co, has received a 29-year concession from the Laotian government to operate the dam’s power plant and Thailand is set to buy 95% of the electricity generated.

Milton Osborne of the Lowy Institute, an Australian foreign policy thinktank, said Xayaburi marked a turning-point that would enable others to build their own dams, including Cambodia.

He described as a “monstrous disaster” a proposal for a Chinese power company to build a dam at Sambor in northeastern Cambodia, on a tributary of the Mekong. “It would be so disastrous, blocking one of the main fish migratory systems,” he said.

Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia share the lower stretches of the 2,500-mile (4,000km ) Mekong. Activists say dams could threaten food security in Cambodia and Vietnam.

The river provides up to 80% of the animal protein consumed in Cambodia and sediment and changes to river flow threaten the Mekong Delta, which contributes half of Vietnam’s agricultural GDP.

Cambodia approved its own hydroelectric dams in November.

A second Cambodian project, the Lower Sesan dam in northern Stung Treng province, is a joint venture between Cambodian, Chinese and Vietnamese companies. Campaigners say it would reduce the fish catch in a country with malnutrition issues.

Theun-Hinboun Opening Celebrations Obscure Village Concerns

Theun-Hinboun Opening Celebrations Obscure Village Concerns

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Tue, 01/15/2013 – 7:30pm

By: Tania Lee

Travelling along the Hinboun, Hai and Theun Rivers in Central Laos last month, I met with village headman and families who will soon be affected by the opening of the Theun-Hinboun Expansion Project. About halfway down the Hinboun River, I spoke with people from six different villages, all of whom are facing the prospects of being displaced from their ancestral lands as a result of the project. Villagers consistently expressed fears that the opening of the Theun-Hinboun Expansion Project could have disastrous impacts on their families’ futures due to an increase in the water flowing downstream.

It is their insights and grounded perspectives which reveal a sobering reality check to the celebratory aura surrounding the inauguration ceremony of the Theun-Hinboun Expansion Project, which was officially ‘turned on’ last Friday, January 11^th.

Since the opening of the original Theun-Hinboun Dam in 1998, subsistence farmers of the Hinboun River, who rely on paddy rice farming, small-scale wild fisheries and raising small livestock, have experienced more frequent and prolonged flooding of their rice fields, decreasing fish catches and repeated incidences of livestock drownings as the water levels have continued to swell and flood over the riverbanks, particularly during the rainy season months. They attribute this to the Theun-Hinboun Dam, which diverts water from the Theun to the Hinboun River. They say they are frustrated and at a loss of who to turn to for support, as compensation has never been paid by the Theun Hinboun Power Company (THPC) to redress all of these impacts.

Downstream Villagers Experience Project-Induced Flooding; Futures Unknown

Tania Lee

Now, with the Theun-Hinbout Expansion Project coming online, the amount of water being diverted in the Hinboun River will double, making life increasingly unbearable for Hinboun villagers as project-induced flooding reaches new heights. For over five years, THPC has promised to help move families upland to ‘flood-safe’ areas, but timelines and schedules for moving as well as ways that villagers will regain self-sufficient livelihoods continue to be unclear to the villagers. Neither is this information publicly available. People spoke to me about feeling confused and anxious for solutions to their project-induced suffering. In at least one village I visited a few weeks ago, the headman and other community decision-makers stated that they remain uncertain whether they will still be included in THPC’s plans. They were originally informed that they would get support for moving their homes upland because life in their village would become increasingly difficult with the heightening of the river flows caused by the two Theun-Hinboun projects. Now, they reported that news is circulating that THPC’s plans for support are being scaled-down and that they will receive minimal support.

When I subsequently met with a top THPC executive last month and asked for clarification about whether or not there are plans to move this village, he was uncertain. He then went on to dismiss villagers’ fears about increased levels of water occurring with the opening of the expansion project, saying that they were misinformed about the reality of the project. Yet, the company’s own environmental impact assessment admits that flooding will become increasingly severe as a result of the expansion project. Rather than considering villagers’ apprehensions about what will happen in the coming rainy seasons with the additional impacts of the new project —all of which are based on lived experiences— it seems that their needs for  basic information about how and where they will be able to live have been completely sidelined.

Disturbingly, serious concerns over the lack of sustainable livelihood opportunities and the losses of reliable food sources as a consequence of the opening of the Theun-Hinboun Expansion Project are not only expressed by villagers who are scheduled to move to as-yet-unidentified upland areas in the coming years. Other downstream communities and those displaced by the reservoir of the new dam on the Gnouang River, are similarly left to wonder what their futures will hold, now that they have been dispossessed of their old rice paddies and lost access to abundant wild fisheries.

As one village leader from a community moved upland, away from the new THXP Dam wall, explained to me last month, “If the dam company [THPC] only provides each family with enough support for new houses, this cannot be called development. Our food and resources decrease day by day as the land and soil here is not suitable for growing the food we used to. So it is difficult for us to think that raising pigs, chickens or fish would be sustainable projects for our families if we can’t even afford to feed these animals or find enough water to keep them. There is no sustainability in this model offered to us here.”

New Village, But Without Sustainable Livelihood Options

Tania Lee

Similarly, a group of community leaders in a consolidated new village located on the new reservoir of the Expansion Project asserted in December 2012, “We need the message to get out that the promises made by the company [THPC] for a better life [in the resettlement site] with enough good land for farming rice and suitable places for growing vegetables have been broken.”  They stated that many villagers would prefer to gather resources and farm on the opposite side of the reservoir as the land is more fertile and has greater densities of valuable wild forest resources. However, this area has been declared a protected eco-zone in recent years, and as a result, villagers are caught within a disempowering dilemma, with food and livelihood security seemingly out of reach if they remain confined to the resettlement site.

Too Dry to Grow Subsistence Vegetable Gardens And Unsuitable for Rice Farming

Tania Lee

Last Friday’s inauguration of the Theun-Hinboun Expansion Project occurred with no serious attempt to address these urgent concerns widely expressed by villagers in affected villages. Official press releases report that the Lao Deputy Prime Minister, officials from the Ministry of Energy and Mines, Thai officials, representatives of the Theun Hinboun Power Company, and corporate shareholders from Statkraft of Norway all made self-congratulatory speeches about the contributions of the Theun-Hinboun Expansion Project to social development and climate change mitigation.

During the inauguration, Statkraft’s President and CEO Christian Rynning-Tønnesen even announced that through the expansion project “Norwegian hydropower expertise contributes to profitable, environmentally friendly and sustainable investments.”  Surely, the Norwegian people who will be profiting from the building and operation  of this project will see beyond last week’s public relations exercise that put the lived realities of the Lao communities along the Hinboun, Hai and Theun Rivers out-of-sight and out-of-mind. With sustainable social and economic development for the affected villagers remaining merely as hopes and dreams, the question of development for whom bears asking. As does the question of whether large hydropower dams like the Theun-Hinboun Dam and Expansion Project could ever be part of a vision of global cooperation on ‘climate-smart’ development when tens of thousands of people have been left to suffer from increased flooding while being forced to abandon a self-reliant system of subsistence farming and harvesting of non-timber forest products.

If the officials who attended Friday’s inauguration ceremonies are genuinely interested in pursuing development that is socially and environmentally responsible, it is high time they shift their focus towards heeding affected villagers’ consistent calls for clarity about how – and when – their communities will regain a lasting sense of livelihood security.

Date: Tuesday, January 15, 2013

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Tania Lee

Lao Program Coordinator

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