Editorial, The Daily Star, 3 September, 2009
Peaceful protests must not be subject to such brutality
IT is unquestionably bad practice to prevent people from asserting their democratic right to protest. And the practice gets worse when, in order to quell such protests, the law enforcers resort to a baton charge of the protestors. That precisely is what happened on Wednesday when a procession organized by the National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Ports was pounced upon by the police. As so often happens in such instances of harshness demonstrated by policemen, no fewer than thirty people were left with various degrees of injuries on their persons. Among these thirty were ten policemen. It has been given out that the marchers, who were trying to reach the head offices of Petrobangla in Karwan Bazar to register their disapproval of the lease of three offshore gas fields to foreign companies, ended up vandalizing quite a few vehicles as a result of the police action. Vandalism, of course, is always to be condemned. If some of these protestors resorted to violent action, we cannot but unambiguously tell them they did themselves no service.
That said, though, we must go back to the thought of why peaceful marchers must be impeded by the law enforcers every time they seek to draw attention to some grievances they might wish to voice in the national interest. Over the years, even during the period of some elected governments, it has been observed that the police have demonstrated a degree of vehemence and force while dealing with protestors that has left us all wondering about the responsibilities of the state to those who voice a contrary opinion. In the recent past, we have witnessed the police taking, on some crude and indefensible instructions from the powers that be, nearly everyone on the streets into custody on the assumption that everyone is an agitator. Now, even if there are reasons to feel that law and order could be threatened by a protest march, there are sophisticated ways of handling it rather than adopting a knee-jerk position. A fundamental point about the police handling protests is for them to remain absolutely cool in the face of any provocation. Unfortunately, what they did on Wednesday was anything but cool. Besides, the fact that the anti-lease march was peaceful and was led by a number of prominent citizens should have made the police think twice before taking such action.
The point here is not whether the stand of the marchers regarding the lease of the gas fields is right or wrong. It is one of the law enforcers, in these days of enhanced political and democratic sensibilities, needlessly wielding their truncheons on people who only have a point of view to be conveyed to the government. At a time when an elected government is in office, the sight of citizens beaten to the ground by policemen is nothing less than a scandal. We are then all left feeling ashamed.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Thursday, September 3, 2009
PROTEST AGAINST OFFSHORE BLOCK DEAL: 50 injured as police charge into demo
Countrywide protests today, march towards PMO Sept 10
Staff Correspondent, NewAge, September 3, 2009
More than 50 people, including the member-secretary of the National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Ports, Anu Muhammad, were injured when police charged into marchers heading for Petrobangla headquarters in the capital midday Wednesday in protest against the government’s decision to award three offshore blocks to international oil companies.
About 1,000 leaders and activists of the committee gathered at Muktangan where they held a rally in the morning before marching towards the Petrobangla office at Karwan Bazar where the protesters were to lay siege.
The national committee announced the programme in protest at the government’s decision to award three blocks to two IOCs with a provision allowing them to export up to 80 per cent of gas. The committee feared such a move would threaten the country’s energy security.
Policemen charge at economist Professor Anu Muhammd with truncheons as he fell on the road during a police attack on a peaceful procession of the national committee to protect oil, gas, mineral resources, power and port which was marching to lay siege to the Petrobangla head office in Dhaka on Wednesday. — New Age photo
Police swooped on the protesters and clubbed them indiscriminately after they broke through the barricades set up by the lawmen at Paltan crossing at around noon and tried to march towards the Petrobangla office.
Angry protesters fought pitched battles with police at Bijoynagar for about half an hour before dispersing. They attacked vehicles during the clash forcing traffic to make a detour.
Both legs of Anu Muhammad, also a professor of economics at Jahangirnagar University, were badly fractured in the police attack while a number of other left-leaning political leaders and activists, including Saiful Huq, Mushrefa Mishu, Jannatul Marium Tania, Montu Biswas, Srikant Samaddar, Biplab Mandal, Gazi Shafiullah and Sumi Akhtar sustained injuries.
Watch an interview with Anu Muhammad from hospital bed. Interviewed by Shahidul Alam, Drik
Read excerpts of the interview.
The injured were taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital and most of them were released after first aid. Professor Anu Muhammad was shifted to Square Hospital from DMCH.
Journalists trying to visit Anu Muhammad at Square Hospital were refused permission to see him. When contacted, the hospital management said it might have been done at the advice of the attending doctors.
Condemning the police action Anu Muhammad told reporters that their campaigns were aimed at protecting the natural resources of the country. ‘We are not against the government; we are against the move to export our natural resources. It is the government’s responsibility to protect the lives and property of the citizens. I don’t understand why the police pounced on us,’ he said.
Later, the committee held a meeting at the office of the Communist Party of Bangladesh at Paltan.
The committee convener Sheikh Mohammad Shaheedullah at a press conference said that the police had charged baton on their peaceful demonstration because the government was desperate to protect the interest of international oil companies instead of national interest.
‘We strongly condemn the unprovoked attack. This has exposed the fascist attitude of the government,’ he said demanding immediate action against the police officers involved in the attack.
Shaheedullah warned that the government would not be able to foil their movement by resorting to repression. He vowed to continue the movement until the decision to allow gas export was scrapped.
The committee announced fresh programmes protesting at Wednesday’s police action. The programmes include countrywide demonstrations and a protest rally at Muktangan in the capital this afternoon. The committee will march towards the Prime Minister’s Office from Muktangan at 11:00am on September 10. Besides, it will hold rallies and processions in different thanas of Dhaka city and elsewhere in the country.
The committee will announce further action programmes, including hartal and siege, if the government does not refrain from leasing the offshore gas blocks, he said.
Shaheedullah, justice Golam Rabbani, Syed Abul Maksud, CPB general secretary Mujahidul Islam Selim, Workers Party general secretary Bimal Biswas, Workers Party (reconstituted) convener, Haider Akber Khan Rano, Gana Front leader Tipu Biswas, CPB leaders Ruhin Hossain Prince and AN Rasheda, Bangladesher Samajtantrik Dal leader Bazlur Rashid Firoz and professors MM Akash, Shamsul Alam, Mesbah Kamal, Pias Karim, ethnic minority leader Rabindranath Soren and former state minister for power and energy Anwarul Kabir Talukder attended the Muktangan rally.
The speakers said that the prime minister’s approval of offshore oil and gas exploration deals in the Bay of Bengal with two international companies, ConocoPhillips and Tullow Oil plc, ran counter to her poll campaign pledges.
The cabinet committee on economic affairs, headed by the finance minister, on August 24 approved offshore oil and gas exploration deals with the two companies in three sea blocks in the resource-rich Bay, on condition that they would not operate in the disputed areas in the blocks.
At the rally, Shaheedullah said they demanded cancellation of the Model Production Sharing Contract 2008, approved by the last interim government, saying pressure from ‘colonialists’ had been behind it.
Anu Muhammad said the present government was not working as the true representatives of the people. ‘The energy ministry and Petrobangla are working for multinational companies,’ he said. ‘Till now three of 28 blocks have been allocated to international companies and gradually the rest will be given to them,’ he said.
Mujahidul Islam Selim said that Sheikh Hasina during her first stint as prime minister had told the then US president Bill Clinton in 2000 that Bangladesh would not export gas without ensuring a 50-year domestic supply. ‘After such a promise, this latest agreement is extremely treacherous,’ he said.
Different left-leaning political parties and organisations, meanwhile, condemned the police attack on the ‘peaceful’ march of the national committee.
The Communist Party of Bangladesh president Manzurul Ahsan Khan and general secretary Mujahidul Islam Selim in a press statement termed the police attack fascist and contrary to democracy and basic rights of the people.
Workers Party president Rashed Khan Menon and general secretary Bimal Biswas, condemned the police attack and called on the government to drop the plan to lease out the three offshore gas blocks to international companies.
Bangladesher Samajtantrik Dal convener Khalequzzaman, Ganatantri Party president Mohammad Afzal, general secretary Nurur Rahman Selim, Democratic Revolutionary Party president Nirmal Sen, general secretary Mushrefa Mishu, Revolutionary Workers Party president Khandaker Ali Abbas, general secretary Saiful Huq, Workers Party (reconstituted) convener Haider Akbar Khan Rano, Ganasanghati coordinator Zonayed Saki, Jatiya Mukti Council president Badruddin Umar and secretary Foizul Hakim, Garments Workers Unity Forum, Anti-imperialist Students Unity, Nayaganatantrik Gana Morcha, Chhatra Oikya Forum, Bangladesh Khetmajur Samiti, Green Voice and Bangladesh Paribesh Andolan leaders also condemned the police attack.
Staff Correspondent, NewAge, September 3, 2009
More than 50 people, including the member-secretary of the National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Ports, Anu Muhammad, were injured when police charged into marchers heading for Petrobangla headquarters in the capital midday Wednesday in protest against the government’s decision to award three offshore blocks to international oil companies.
About 1,000 leaders and activists of the committee gathered at Muktangan where they held a rally in the morning before marching towards the Petrobangla office at Karwan Bazar where the protesters were to lay siege.
The national committee announced the programme in protest at the government’s decision to award three blocks to two IOCs with a provision allowing them to export up to 80 per cent of gas. The committee feared such a move would threaten the country’s energy security.
Policemen charge at economist Professor Anu Muhammd with truncheons as he fell on the road during a police attack on a peaceful procession of the national committee to protect oil, gas, mineral resources, power and port which was marching to lay siege to the Petrobangla head office in Dhaka on Wednesday. — New Age photo
Police swooped on the protesters and clubbed them indiscriminately after they broke through the barricades set up by the lawmen at Paltan crossing at around noon and tried to march towards the Petrobangla office.
Angry protesters fought pitched battles with police at Bijoynagar for about half an hour before dispersing. They attacked vehicles during the clash forcing traffic to make a detour.
Both legs of Anu Muhammad, also a professor of economics at Jahangirnagar University, were badly fractured in the police attack while a number of other left-leaning political leaders and activists, including Saiful Huq, Mushrefa Mishu, Jannatul Marium Tania, Montu Biswas, Srikant Samaddar, Biplab Mandal, Gazi Shafiullah and Sumi Akhtar sustained injuries.
Watch an interview with Anu Muhammad from hospital bed. Interviewed by Shahidul Alam, Drik
Read excerpts of the interview.
The injured were taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital and most of them were released after first aid. Professor Anu Muhammad was shifted to Square Hospital from DMCH.
Journalists trying to visit Anu Muhammad at Square Hospital were refused permission to see him. When contacted, the hospital management said it might have been done at the advice of the attending doctors.
Condemning the police action Anu Muhammad told reporters that their campaigns were aimed at protecting the natural resources of the country. ‘We are not against the government; we are against the move to export our natural resources. It is the government’s responsibility to protect the lives and property of the citizens. I don’t understand why the police pounced on us,’ he said.
Later, the committee held a meeting at the office of the Communist Party of Bangladesh at Paltan.
The committee convener Sheikh Mohammad Shaheedullah at a press conference said that the police had charged baton on their peaceful demonstration because the government was desperate to protect the interest of international oil companies instead of national interest.
‘We strongly condemn the unprovoked attack. This has exposed the fascist attitude of the government,’ he said demanding immediate action against the police officers involved in the attack.
Shaheedullah warned that the government would not be able to foil their movement by resorting to repression. He vowed to continue the movement until the decision to allow gas export was scrapped.
The committee announced fresh programmes protesting at Wednesday’s police action. The programmes include countrywide demonstrations and a protest rally at Muktangan in the capital this afternoon. The committee will march towards the Prime Minister’s Office from Muktangan at 11:00am on September 10. Besides, it will hold rallies and processions in different thanas of Dhaka city and elsewhere in the country.
The committee will announce further action programmes, including hartal and siege, if the government does not refrain from leasing the offshore gas blocks, he said.
Shaheedullah, justice Golam Rabbani, Syed Abul Maksud, CPB general secretary Mujahidul Islam Selim, Workers Party general secretary Bimal Biswas, Workers Party (reconstituted) convener, Haider Akber Khan Rano, Gana Front leader Tipu Biswas, CPB leaders Ruhin Hossain Prince and AN Rasheda, Bangladesher Samajtantrik Dal leader Bazlur Rashid Firoz and professors MM Akash, Shamsul Alam, Mesbah Kamal, Pias Karim, ethnic minority leader Rabindranath Soren and former state minister for power and energy Anwarul Kabir Talukder attended the Muktangan rally.
The speakers said that the prime minister’s approval of offshore oil and gas exploration deals in the Bay of Bengal with two international companies, ConocoPhillips and Tullow Oil plc, ran counter to her poll campaign pledges.
The cabinet committee on economic affairs, headed by the finance minister, on August 24 approved offshore oil and gas exploration deals with the two companies in three sea blocks in the resource-rich Bay, on condition that they would not operate in the disputed areas in the blocks.
At the rally, Shaheedullah said they demanded cancellation of the Model Production Sharing Contract 2008, approved by the last interim government, saying pressure from ‘colonialists’ had been behind it.
Anu Muhammad said the present government was not working as the true representatives of the people. ‘The energy ministry and Petrobangla are working for multinational companies,’ he said. ‘Till now three of 28 blocks have been allocated to international companies and gradually the rest will be given to them,’ he said.
Mujahidul Islam Selim said that Sheikh Hasina during her first stint as prime minister had told the then US president Bill Clinton in 2000 that Bangladesh would not export gas without ensuring a 50-year domestic supply. ‘After such a promise, this latest agreement is extremely treacherous,’ he said.
Different left-leaning political parties and organisations, meanwhile, condemned the police attack on the ‘peaceful’ march of the national committee.
The Communist Party of Bangladesh president Manzurul Ahsan Khan and general secretary Mujahidul Islam Selim in a press statement termed the police attack fascist and contrary to democracy and basic rights of the people.
Workers Party president Rashed Khan Menon and general secretary Bimal Biswas, condemned the police attack and called on the government to drop the plan to lease out the three offshore gas blocks to international companies.
Bangladesher Samajtantrik Dal convener Khalequzzaman, Ganatantri Party president Mohammad Afzal, general secretary Nurur Rahman Selim, Democratic Revolutionary Party president Nirmal Sen, general secretary Mushrefa Mishu, Revolutionary Workers Party president Khandaker Ali Abbas, general secretary Saiful Huq, Workers Party (reconstituted) convener Haider Akbar Khan Rano, Ganasanghati coordinator Zonayed Saki, Jatiya Mukti Council president Badruddin Umar and secretary Foizul Hakim, Garments Workers Unity Forum, Anti-imperialist Students Unity, Nayaganatantrik Gana Morcha, Chhatra Oikya Forum, Bangladesh Khetmajur Samiti, Green Voice and Bangladesh Paribesh Andolan leaders also condemned the police attack.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Phulbari Day today
Staff Correspondent, NewAge, August 26, 2009
Photo: Zakir Kibria
Different socio-political organisations will observe Phulbari Day today in remembrance of the demonstrations against Asia Energy’s planned open-pit mining at Phulbari in Dinajpur on August 26, 2006.
Three people were killed and many were injured when lawmen into protests against at the Phulbari coal field in August 2006.
Four days after the demonstrations, the then BNP-led government on August 30 signed a six-point agreement with protesters, spearheaded by the national committee to protect oil, gas, mineral resources, power and port to expel Asia Energy from Bangladesh and ban open-pit mining.
The committee, however, expressed its dismay at the non-implementation of the agreement as Asia Energy is still active in the country.
The national committee and different left-leaning political organisations have chalked up programmes to mark August 26 as Phulbari Day. The committee will place flowers at Shaheed Smritistambha at Phulbari and hold a rally there.
The committee will also place flowers at the Central Shaheed Minar and observe the day in other places.
Jatiya Gana Front will hold a rally and bring out a procession in Muktangon to mark the day. The organisation in a statement said any move for open-pit mining in Bangladesh would be stopped.
Samajtantrik Chhatra Front will also bring out a procession on the Dhaka University campus on the occasion demanding expulsion of Asia Energy from Bangladesh.
Further Information:
Phulbari Resistance on Facebook
Photo: Zakir Kibria
Different socio-political organisations will observe Phulbari Day today in remembrance of the demonstrations against Asia Energy’s planned open-pit mining at Phulbari in Dinajpur on August 26, 2006.
Three people were killed and many were injured when lawmen into protests against at the Phulbari coal field in August 2006.
Four days after the demonstrations, the then BNP-led government on August 30 signed a six-point agreement with protesters, spearheaded by the national committee to protect oil, gas, mineral resources, power and port to expel Asia Energy from Bangladesh and ban open-pit mining.
The committee, however, expressed its dismay at the non-implementation of the agreement as Asia Energy is still active in the country.
The national committee and different left-leaning political organisations have chalked up programmes to mark August 26 as Phulbari Day. The committee will place flowers at Shaheed Smritistambha at Phulbari and hold a rally there.
The committee will also place flowers at the Central Shaheed Minar and observe the day in other places.
Jatiya Gana Front will hold a rally and bring out a procession in Muktangon to mark the day. The organisation in a statement said any move for open-pit mining in Bangladesh would be stopped.
Samajtantrik Chhatra Front will also bring out a procession on the Dhaka University campus on the occasion demanding expulsion of Asia Energy from Bangladesh.
Further Information:
Phulbari Resistance on Facebook
Coal deposits, mining perspective in northwest Bangladesh
How could the Phulbari basin extend up to 60 sq km? Is it true? The present study reveals that if the in situ coal reserve was around 500 million tonnes, the deposited area in the Phulbari basin could never exceed 6 km2. Therefore, the scientific and general community of the country should rethink the possible fraud by some people, writes Md Rafiqul Islam*
NewAge, August 26, 2009
NATURAL gas is the major indigenous non-renewable energy resource in Bangladesh. Gas production has increased sharply over the last decade so that natural gas resources are likely to be exhausted in 12 to 15 years. Considering the critical situation in power sectors, the government of Bangladesh wishes to produce coal from the Gondwana coal deposits because of the gradual increase in demands of electricity and to safeguard the energy crises in 21st century. Highly volatile B bituminous rank coal has been discovered in varying amounts in 13 specific places of the northwestern districts of the country like Bogra, Jaipurhat, Rangpur and Dinajpur. Seven coalfields, among them, like Barapukuria, Phulbari, Dighipara, Nawabjonj, Shimnagar, Dangapara, and Burirdoba basins are found in Dinajpur district. Three coal basins — Khalaspir, Baradgonj and Osmanpur — have been found in Rangpur district. Other two coal basins are the Kuchma basin, found to the eastern Bogra shelf, and the Shingra basin, found to the western frontier of Bogra district. The Shingra basin is the northern part of the greater Atrai basin (Chalan Beel). The Jamalganj basin, which is the largest coal basin of the country, is found in Joypurhat, close to the Jamalganj town. The Kuchma and Jamalganj basins were discovered in 1959 and 1962 respectively. It is reasonable to state that after the liberation war in 1971, there was no satisfactory advancement in discovering the coalfields in Bangladesh until 1985. The Geological Survey of Bangladesh discovered the first coal basin in Barapukuria in 1985-88. The surface drilling confirmed the existence of a sequence of Gondwana coal-bearing sediments. The GSB has discovered the Khalaspir coal basin in 1987 and the Dighipara basin in 1995. The coal basins like, Phulbari, Nawabgonj, Shimnagar, Dangapara and Burirdoba have been recognised based on the negative gravity anomaly, a survey that was carried out by the Geological Survey of Bangladesh in 1992. Based on the gravity-anomaly survey report of the GSB, an Australian company, BHP (Broken Hill Proprietary), completed the surface drilling and specified the existence of coal in the Phulbari basin in 1997. Other basins as mentioned above have not been considered for exploration, reservoir estimation, and feasibility study yet. The five discovered coal basins which have the most estimated coal deposits are Jamajganj (1053 million tonnes), Barapukuria (377 million tonnes), Khalaspir (828 million tonnes), Phulbari (about 500 million tonnes) and Dighipara (about 500 million tonnes).
Recently, a vast conflict has been raised between the basinal extent and estimated reserve of the Phulbari coal basin compared with the extent and reserve of Barapukuria as well as the Jamalganj basin. For example, the Barapukuria basin has six coal seams with an average thickness of about 44.8 m that extends up to 5.16 square km with an in situ total reserve of 377 million tonnes. The Jamalganj basin has seven coal seams with an average seam thickness of about 64 m and it covers about 11.7 sq km. In contrast, BHP boreholes reveal the Phulbari basin has only two coal seams with an average total thickness of about 38 m. This author has calculated the preliminary estimated reserve of about 483-500 million tonnes, while the deposited area is 6 square km. If the area is ten times of 6 km2, then the estimated reserve should be ten times, i.e. 4830-5000 million tonnes. Therefore, the author wonders and his critical query is here. How could the Phulbari basin extend up to 60 sq km? Is it true? The present study reveals that if the in situ coal reserve was around 500 million tonnes, the deposited area in the Phulbari basin could never exceed 6 km2. Therefore, the scientific and general community of the country should rethink about the fraud of some people. Why some particular people are shouting that the extent of the Phulbari coal basin is about 60 km2, which is ten times the in situ coal reserve area of the basin. Is there any hidden agenda behind this publicity?
Some people are trying to motivate the government for open-pit mining in Phulbari, and Barapukuria. Worldwide mining reveals that a larger-scale area is needed for open-pit mining than that needed for underground mining. If the angle of internal friction of the overburden rocks strata of an open mine is minor, in that case, a huge amount of area is wanted to safeguard the slope stability for optimum production of coal. The depth of coal seams of the Phulbari basin ranges from 152 to 255 m. The angle of internal friction of the overburden of the Barapukuria basin ranges from 10 to 32 degree. Belonging to the same geological belt, the friction angle of rock strata of the Phulbari basin would be identical to that of Barapukuria. Therefore, if the mining company considers the above-mentioned range of friction angle for safe operation, it would get a huge amount of land. In addition, the mining company should think of shifting the Phulbari town along with many densely populated villages elsewhere. Perhaps these are the reasons for shouting 60 km2. More clearly, excluding 6 km2 area of the coal deposit, another 54 km2 land would be required for supplementary purposes rather than for mining.
The problem for open-pit mining in northwest Bangladesh lies with the depth of coal seams and overburden unconfined water-bearing formation. The mining methods are usually selected based on the depth of overburden of ore body, geographic and topographic locations, and geology of the basin. Most of the open-pit coalmines in Australia, for example, Surat Basin, Galilee Basin, Washpool open-pit coal project, the Red Hill open-pit coal project, the Burton, Ellensfield and Wallanbah open-pits, etc, are found in and around the hilly regions. However, open-pit mines in Australia are not located within the arable and densely populated land. The depths of these open-pit mines in that area are shallower (maximum of 120m). For example, in the Washpool open-pit coal project, the coal seams occur at a shallow depth up to roughly 60m. In the Red Hill open-pit coal project, the shallower (100m) seam has been considered for small open-pit, while the deeper seam (depth ranges from 150m–300m) has been considered for underground mining. The depths to the top of coal seams in the Burton, Ellensfield and Wallanbah open-pits are almost 100m, 120m and 90m respectively. In Coppabella mine, a major open-cut has been considered to be around 150m depth, after which an underground mining has been proposed. In India, the eventual pit depth of the Chandmari Coppermine of Rajasthan is 148m. The Lajkura opencast coal mine is located in the Orissa state of India. The depth of overburden rock is 22m, immediately above the main coal seam, having a thickness of 18m. The Jharia coalfield in Bihar state of India is about 40km long and about 12km in average width, having 50 coal seams and an in situ reserve of 17077 million tonnes. Opencast mining in Jharia has a maximum depth of 70m. The mine has been exploited with a combination of opencast and underground mining. Therefore, the study implies the depth of coal seams and unconfined aquifer in the Phulbari and northern part of the Barapukuria basin does not allow open-pit mining. Other alternatives for coal utilisation like underground coal gasification, coal bed methane and coal to liquid technologies should be considered in this connection. For underground mining, Longwall Top Coal Caving mining method associated with descending order of extraction and backfill technology should be preferred.
*Dr Md Rafiqul Islam is a professional mine geologist. At present he is a research fellow of the Department of Earth Sciences, University of the Ryukyus, Japan
NewAge, August 26, 2009
NATURAL gas is the major indigenous non-renewable energy resource in Bangladesh. Gas production has increased sharply over the last decade so that natural gas resources are likely to be exhausted in 12 to 15 years. Considering the critical situation in power sectors, the government of Bangladesh wishes to produce coal from the Gondwana coal deposits because of the gradual increase in demands of electricity and to safeguard the energy crises in 21st century. Highly volatile B bituminous rank coal has been discovered in varying amounts in 13 specific places of the northwestern districts of the country like Bogra, Jaipurhat, Rangpur and Dinajpur. Seven coalfields, among them, like Barapukuria, Phulbari, Dighipara, Nawabjonj, Shimnagar, Dangapara, and Burirdoba basins are found in Dinajpur district. Three coal basins — Khalaspir, Baradgonj and Osmanpur — have been found in Rangpur district. Other two coal basins are the Kuchma basin, found to the eastern Bogra shelf, and the Shingra basin, found to the western frontier of Bogra district. The Shingra basin is the northern part of the greater Atrai basin (Chalan Beel). The Jamalganj basin, which is the largest coal basin of the country, is found in Joypurhat, close to the Jamalganj town. The Kuchma and Jamalganj basins were discovered in 1959 and 1962 respectively. It is reasonable to state that after the liberation war in 1971, there was no satisfactory advancement in discovering the coalfields in Bangladesh until 1985. The Geological Survey of Bangladesh discovered the first coal basin in Barapukuria in 1985-88. The surface drilling confirmed the existence of a sequence of Gondwana coal-bearing sediments. The GSB has discovered the Khalaspir coal basin in 1987 and the Dighipara basin in 1995. The coal basins like, Phulbari, Nawabgonj, Shimnagar, Dangapara and Burirdoba have been recognised based on the negative gravity anomaly, a survey that was carried out by the Geological Survey of Bangladesh in 1992. Based on the gravity-anomaly survey report of the GSB, an Australian company, BHP (Broken Hill Proprietary), completed the surface drilling and specified the existence of coal in the Phulbari basin in 1997. Other basins as mentioned above have not been considered for exploration, reservoir estimation, and feasibility study yet. The five discovered coal basins which have the most estimated coal deposits are Jamajganj (1053 million tonnes), Barapukuria (377 million tonnes), Khalaspir (828 million tonnes), Phulbari (about 500 million tonnes) and Dighipara (about 500 million tonnes).
Recently, a vast conflict has been raised between the basinal extent and estimated reserve of the Phulbari coal basin compared with the extent and reserve of Barapukuria as well as the Jamalganj basin. For example, the Barapukuria basin has six coal seams with an average thickness of about 44.8 m that extends up to 5.16 square km with an in situ total reserve of 377 million tonnes. The Jamalganj basin has seven coal seams with an average seam thickness of about 64 m and it covers about 11.7 sq km. In contrast, BHP boreholes reveal the Phulbari basin has only two coal seams with an average total thickness of about 38 m. This author has calculated the preliminary estimated reserve of about 483-500 million tonnes, while the deposited area is 6 square km. If the area is ten times of 6 km2, then the estimated reserve should be ten times, i.e. 4830-5000 million tonnes. Therefore, the author wonders and his critical query is here. How could the Phulbari basin extend up to 60 sq km? Is it true? The present study reveals that if the in situ coal reserve was around 500 million tonnes, the deposited area in the Phulbari basin could never exceed 6 km2. Therefore, the scientific and general community of the country should rethink about the fraud of some people. Why some particular people are shouting that the extent of the Phulbari coal basin is about 60 km2, which is ten times the in situ coal reserve area of the basin. Is there any hidden agenda behind this publicity?
Some people are trying to motivate the government for open-pit mining in Phulbari, and Barapukuria. Worldwide mining reveals that a larger-scale area is needed for open-pit mining than that needed for underground mining. If the angle of internal friction of the overburden rocks strata of an open mine is minor, in that case, a huge amount of area is wanted to safeguard the slope stability for optimum production of coal. The depth of coal seams of the Phulbari basin ranges from 152 to 255 m. The angle of internal friction of the overburden of the Barapukuria basin ranges from 10 to 32 degree. Belonging to the same geological belt, the friction angle of rock strata of the Phulbari basin would be identical to that of Barapukuria. Therefore, if the mining company considers the above-mentioned range of friction angle for safe operation, it would get a huge amount of land. In addition, the mining company should think of shifting the Phulbari town along with many densely populated villages elsewhere. Perhaps these are the reasons for shouting 60 km2. More clearly, excluding 6 km2 area of the coal deposit, another 54 km2 land would be required for supplementary purposes rather than for mining.
The problem for open-pit mining in northwest Bangladesh lies with the depth of coal seams and overburden unconfined water-bearing formation. The mining methods are usually selected based on the depth of overburden of ore body, geographic and topographic locations, and geology of the basin. Most of the open-pit coalmines in Australia, for example, Surat Basin, Galilee Basin, Washpool open-pit coal project, the Red Hill open-pit coal project, the Burton, Ellensfield and Wallanbah open-pits, etc, are found in and around the hilly regions. However, open-pit mines in Australia are not located within the arable and densely populated land. The depths of these open-pit mines in that area are shallower (maximum of 120m). For example, in the Washpool open-pit coal project, the coal seams occur at a shallow depth up to roughly 60m. In the Red Hill open-pit coal project, the shallower (100m) seam has been considered for small open-pit, while the deeper seam (depth ranges from 150m–300m) has been considered for underground mining. The depths to the top of coal seams in the Burton, Ellensfield and Wallanbah open-pits are almost 100m, 120m and 90m respectively. In Coppabella mine, a major open-cut has been considered to be around 150m depth, after which an underground mining has been proposed. In India, the eventual pit depth of the Chandmari Coppermine of Rajasthan is 148m. The Lajkura opencast coal mine is located in the Orissa state of India. The depth of overburden rock is 22m, immediately above the main coal seam, having a thickness of 18m. The Jharia coalfield in Bihar state of India is about 40km long and about 12km in average width, having 50 coal seams and an in situ reserve of 17077 million tonnes. Opencast mining in Jharia has a maximum depth of 70m. The mine has been exploited with a combination of opencast and underground mining. Therefore, the study implies the depth of coal seams and unconfined aquifer in the Phulbari and northern part of the Barapukuria basin does not allow open-pit mining. Other alternatives for coal utilisation like underground coal gasification, coal bed methane and coal to liquid technologies should be considered in this connection. For underground mining, Longwall Top Coal Caving mining method associated with descending order of extraction and backfill technology should be preferred.
*Dr Md Rafiqul Islam is a professional mine geologist. At present he is a research fellow of the Department of Earth Sciences, University of the Ryukyus, Japan
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Interview with Roger Moody: social, economic and environmental impacts of mining
Interviewed by GRAIN
Roger Moody is an expert on mining and mining transnationals. He has spent years uncovering the facts about how mining companies operate. He edits the Mines and Communities website, which exposes the social, economic and environmental impacts of mining, particularly as they affect indigenous and traditional communities.
In Ecuador and India, we see indigenous communities mobilising powerfully to try and stop mining projects that they see as damaging to their way of life and belief systems. Is this part of a global trend? Have local communities become more active in recent years in the struggle to defend their territories?
RM: No question. When I started working with a global network of mining-affected communities with Minewatch back in 1990, we were working on around 30 major struggles a year. Part of the reason for this was that we didn’t know about isolated communities who hadn’t yet “internationalised” their experiences. That began to change between 1990 and 1995, as not only Minewatch but larger organisations (Amnesty, WWF, Human Rights Watch, and others) belatedly came to appreciate that mining was the big remaining global issue that they hadn’t yet effectively tackled. In 1996 the World Council of Churches held a conference on Indigenous Peoples and Mining, which 50 delegates attended. At a follow-up conference embracing the same aims, held in Manila in March 2009, 85 delegates attended – and there could have been many more. As editor of the Mines and Communities website, established in 2001, I now receive every day as many complaints from mining-affected communities as were being circulated every week a decade ago.
Vedanta is the company the Dongaria are fighting against. What do you know about Vedanta’s track record in other parts of the world?
Having examined the operations of numerous mining companies on a professional basis since the early 1990s, I’m often asked to name the “world’s worst”. Until 2007 I refused to do so. It is often the case that in some respects the big multinational miners are better than their smaller counterparts – especially in their relationships with some (I stress only some) local communities. They’ve finally learned how to win some of these on board, by banging the “sustainable development” drum and offering relatively generous impact benefit packages and access to infrastructure. On the other hand, the bigger the company, the worse the environmental damage they can do or threaten to do. For example, in a survey of tailings (mine waste) dam collapses included in my book Rocks and Hard Places, [1] the majority of the worst disasters were at mines operated by big US and European companies.
However, after Vedanta was listed on the London Stock Exchange in late 2003, I felt bound to examine this specific enterprise in more detail. Now I have no hesitation in describing it as the world’s most damaging mining company. It’s not just physical damage we’re talking about, but the entire armoury of deception – lies, breaches of faith and, above all, violations of regulations – to which the company has resorted over the past five years. While its conflict with the Dongaria Kondhs around its Nyamgiri bauxite project has seized the headlines (rightly so), I find that many people still aren’t aware of Vedanta’s egregious activities in other parts of India (in Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh, in particular) or its sullied record in Zambia and Armenia. In 2007, Anil Agarwal, the executive chair of Vedanta – who, with his family, holds some 54% of the company’s share capital – set about making it a “global force”. And that is what he’s been doing, acquiring control of Sesa Goa, India’s biggest iron ore exporter in 2007; and more recently buying into another iron ore producer in Brazil, taking a significant stake in Canada’s largest (and most polluting) zinc-lead miner, and just now, in May, announcing a new copper plant for the United Arab Emirates. Potentially the most threatening of its current plans is to take over Asarco, the USA’s third biggest copper-mining company, with the worst record for the country in this particular sector. Agarwal is a malevolent genius: Vedanta identifies run-down enterprises that can be acquired on the cheap and bring in quick profits, whatever corners have to be cut and regulations overridden. It’s this one aspect of Vedanta’s game plan which was exposed by the Norwegian government’s Council on Ethics last year, when, after concluding an intensive two-year investigation, it concluded that the company was intrinsically incapable of observing even basic rules of good practice, and that the government’s pension fund should disinvest from the company (which it did).
Mining companies always claim that they can mine without damaging diversity or local farming practices. Do they ever actually achieve this?
I’m not going to generalise. It took some years before those of us working to try to limit the industry’s depredations got some positive response from some individual mining companies. And we haven’t been entirely disappointed. For example, the world’s largest “natural resource” company, BHP Billiton, promised a few years ago never again to dump its waste into rivers or on the sea bottom – and so far it has kept to that promise. Rio Tinto, on the other hand – BHP Billiton’s major global rival – hasn’t undertaken to follow that lead. Arguably, however, Rio Tinto is more aware of the consequences of mining in primary forest areas, and has done a few deals with communities of which the latter approve. At root, we’re confronting an industry whose raison d’être is to go where the minerals are, whatever the consequences to current land and water usage, and to extract profit from irreplaceable resources. Nor do they actively promote recycling and reuse of mined metals, for that would threaten their fundamental mission. Judging from the unceasing flow of justifiable complaints that pass over my desk each day, it’s impossible to conclude that mining practices have substantially improved over the past two decades. Indeed some – such as those used in the expansion of open-pit mining for copper, nickel and gold – have demonstrably got worse.
It is too early to tell whether the communities in Ecuador and India will be successful. But are other communities managing to stop mining projects or to close them down? Can you give us some examples?
Yes they are, though it’s difficult at the present time to distinguish between projects put on hold because of the current lack of debt finance and those which have been abandoned, possibly indefinitely, because the companies know they’ll face continuing, possibly accelerating, resistance. In 2002, PriceWaterhouseCooper surveyed around 30 large mining companies, asking them if they’d been forced to abandon proposed projects because of external opposition – and if so, what type of opposition. The results were surprising: more than 20 had shelved proposals, and the most important factor was, indeed, community opposition. In the past year, BHP Billiton have abandoned some projects; Rio Tinto has sold off others. In most cases, we can’t claim that such proposals have definitely been ditched because the company has recognised the legitimacy of the criticisms; almost always they will cite “economic constraints” instead. We can be sure, however, and increasingly so, that the corporate risks posed by critics, and active resistance at ground level, are factored into company assessments of a project’s viabibility. We know this because the companies are telling us that it is the case.
Awareness is growing worldwide about the gravity of the climate crisis. Is this beginning to change public perceptions? Maybe the ‘development agenda’, where economic progress is valued before all else, is beginning to be challenged? Are people becoming more aware of the huge environmental and social cost of destructive development projects?
We’ve several steps to go before the contribution of mining to greenhouse gas emissions is widely recognised. It’s only been in the past couple of years that UK climate change activists seem to have finally recognised that coal burning is the single biggest culprit. Steel manufacturing comprises perhaps the second biggest contributor to adverse global warming (between 3% and 7%, depending on which figures you believe), with cement production running a close third. If you calculate (few have) the greenhouse gas emissions consequent on burning uranium (ridiculously touted as a “clean” fuel), then the use of mined minerals constitutes, collectively, the biggest climate villain (and that’s without adding in the contribution – which is certainly not negligible – of constructing new mines and power plants to run them). There is also as yet little recognition – certainly at a policy level – that the hopes invested in carbon capture and storage from existing and future coal-fired power plants are false.
The world is in the grip of contradictory trends. On the one hand, we have ever bigger corporations laying claim to larger and larger tracts of land for the industrial production of food and biofuels and for mining, and, on the other, we have increasing community resistance over local projects. What is needed to make resistance more effective?
For a start, largely northern-based NGOs should stop laying down prescriptions; both the analysis and implementation of self-chosen strategies by communities resisting “development” have shot well ahead of many of those offered by desk-bound pontiffs elsewhere. In fact, by challenging specific projects (whether it be a coal mine, a biofuels plantation or a wildlife reserve) these communities are transforming the way the rest of us ought to think about “development”. In my opinion we should leave them to their own devices, while always being ready to offer support when asked (such as trying to cut off investment in companies like Vedanta, which mostly derives from European and US banks). The problem in determining the best strategy is not one, in my experience, that besets communities “at the rock face”. The retrievable, experiential, history of resisting bad mines goes back several hundred years (especially in Latin America). Increasingly I feel that it’s those of us outside the field of battle who don’t know what to do.
Going further:
The Mines and Communities website
[1] Roger Moody, Rocks and Hard Places – the Globalisation of Mining, Zed Books, London, 2007
Roger Moody is an expert on mining and mining transnationals. He has spent years uncovering the facts about how mining companies operate. He edits the Mines and Communities website, which exposes the social, economic and environmental impacts of mining, particularly as they affect indigenous and traditional communities.
In Ecuador and India, we see indigenous communities mobilising powerfully to try and stop mining projects that they see as damaging to their way of life and belief systems. Is this part of a global trend? Have local communities become more active in recent years in the struggle to defend their territories?
RM: No question. When I started working with a global network of mining-affected communities with Minewatch back in 1990, we were working on around 30 major struggles a year. Part of the reason for this was that we didn’t know about isolated communities who hadn’t yet “internationalised” their experiences. That began to change between 1990 and 1995, as not only Minewatch but larger organisations (Amnesty, WWF, Human Rights Watch, and others) belatedly came to appreciate that mining was the big remaining global issue that they hadn’t yet effectively tackled. In 1996 the World Council of Churches held a conference on Indigenous Peoples and Mining, which 50 delegates attended. At a follow-up conference embracing the same aims, held in Manila in March 2009, 85 delegates attended – and there could have been many more. As editor of the Mines and Communities website, established in 2001, I now receive every day as many complaints from mining-affected communities as were being circulated every week a decade ago.
Vedanta is the company the Dongaria are fighting against. What do you know about Vedanta’s track record in other parts of the world?
Having examined the operations of numerous mining companies on a professional basis since the early 1990s, I’m often asked to name the “world’s worst”. Until 2007 I refused to do so. It is often the case that in some respects the big multinational miners are better than their smaller counterparts – especially in their relationships with some (I stress only some) local communities. They’ve finally learned how to win some of these on board, by banging the “sustainable development” drum and offering relatively generous impact benefit packages and access to infrastructure. On the other hand, the bigger the company, the worse the environmental damage they can do or threaten to do. For example, in a survey of tailings (mine waste) dam collapses included in my book Rocks and Hard Places, [1] the majority of the worst disasters were at mines operated by big US and European companies.
However, after Vedanta was listed on the London Stock Exchange in late 2003, I felt bound to examine this specific enterprise in more detail. Now I have no hesitation in describing it as the world’s most damaging mining company. It’s not just physical damage we’re talking about, but the entire armoury of deception – lies, breaches of faith and, above all, violations of regulations – to which the company has resorted over the past five years. While its conflict with the Dongaria Kondhs around its Nyamgiri bauxite project has seized the headlines (rightly so), I find that many people still aren’t aware of Vedanta’s egregious activities in other parts of India (in Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh, in particular) or its sullied record in Zambia and Armenia. In 2007, Anil Agarwal, the executive chair of Vedanta – who, with his family, holds some 54% of the company’s share capital – set about making it a “global force”. And that is what he’s been doing, acquiring control of Sesa Goa, India’s biggest iron ore exporter in 2007; and more recently buying into another iron ore producer in Brazil, taking a significant stake in Canada’s largest (and most polluting) zinc-lead miner, and just now, in May, announcing a new copper plant for the United Arab Emirates. Potentially the most threatening of its current plans is to take over Asarco, the USA’s third biggest copper-mining company, with the worst record for the country in this particular sector. Agarwal is a malevolent genius: Vedanta identifies run-down enterprises that can be acquired on the cheap and bring in quick profits, whatever corners have to be cut and regulations overridden. It’s this one aspect of Vedanta’s game plan which was exposed by the Norwegian government’s Council on Ethics last year, when, after concluding an intensive two-year investigation, it concluded that the company was intrinsically incapable of observing even basic rules of good practice, and that the government’s pension fund should disinvest from the company (which it did).
Mining companies always claim that they can mine without damaging diversity or local farming practices. Do they ever actually achieve this?
I’m not going to generalise. It took some years before those of us working to try to limit the industry’s depredations got some positive response from some individual mining companies. And we haven’t been entirely disappointed. For example, the world’s largest “natural resource” company, BHP Billiton, promised a few years ago never again to dump its waste into rivers or on the sea bottom – and so far it has kept to that promise. Rio Tinto, on the other hand – BHP Billiton’s major global rival – hasn’t undertaken to follow that lead. Arguably, however, Rio Tinto is more aware of the consequences of mining in primary forest areas, and has done a few deals with communities of which the latter approve. At root, we’re confronting an industry whose raison d’être is to go where the minerals are, whatever the consequences to current land and water usage, and to extract profit from irreplaceable resources. Nor do they actively promote recycling and reuse of mined metals, for that would threaten their fundamental mission. Judging from the unceasing flow of justifiable complaints that pass over my desk each day, it’s impossible to conclude that mining practices have substantially improved over the past two decades. Indeed some – such as those used in the expansion of open-pit mining for copper, nickel and gold – have demonstrably got worse.
It is too early to tell whether the communities in Ecuador and India will be successful. But are other communities managing to stop mining projects or to close them down? Can you give us some examples?
Yes they are, though it’s difficult at the present time to distinguish between projects put on hold because of the current lack of debt finance and those which have been abandoned, possibly indefinitely, because the companies know they’ll face continuing, possibly accelerating, resistance. In 2002, PriceWaterhouseCooper surveyed around 30 large mining companies, asking them if they’d been forced to abandon proposed projects because of external opposition – and if so, what type of opposition. The results were surprising: more than 20 had shelved proposals, and the most important factor was, indeed, community opposition. In the past year, BHP Billiton have abandoned some projects; Rio Tinto has sold off others. In most cases, we can’t claim that such proposals have definitely been ditched because the company has recognised the legitimacy of the criticisms; almost always they will cite “economic constraints” instead. We can be sure, however, and increasingly so, that the corporate risks posed by critics, and active resistance at ground level, are factored into company assessments of a project’s viabibility. We know this because the companies are telling us that it is the case.
Awareness is growing worldwide about the gravity of the climate crisis. Is this beginning to change public perceptions? Maybe the ‘development agenda’, where economic progress is valued before all else, is beginning to be challenged? Are people becoming more aware of the huge environmental and social cost of destructive development projects?
We’ve several steps to go before the contribution of mining to greenhouse gas emissions is widely recognised. It’s only been in the past couple of years that UK climate change activists seem to have finally recognised that coal burning is the single biggest culprit. Steel manufacturing comprises perhaps the second biggest contributor to adverse global warming (between 3% and 7%, depending on which figures you believe), with cement production running a close third. If you calculate (few have) the greenhouse gas emissions consequent on burning uranium (ridiculously touted as a “clean” fuel), then the use of mined minerals constitutes, collectively, the biggest climate villain (and that’s without adding in the contribution – which is certainly not negligible – of constructing new mines and power plants to run them). There is also as yet little recognition – certainly at a policy level – that the hopes invested in carbon capture and storage from existing and future coal-fired power plants are false.
The world is in the grip of contradictory trends. On the one hand, we have ever bigger corporations laying claim to larger and larger tracts of land for the industrial production of food and biofuels and for mining, and, on the other, we have increasing community resistance over local projects. What is needed to make resistance more effective?
For a start, largely northern-based NGOs should stop laying down prescriptions; both the analysis and implementation of self-chosen strategies by communities resisting “development” have shot well ahead of many of those offered by desk-bound pontiffs elsewhere. In fact, by challenging specific projects (whether it be a coal mine, a biofuels plantation or a wildlife reserve) these communities are transforming the way the rest of us ought to think about “development”. In my opinion we should leave them to their own devices, while always being ready to offer support when asked (such as trying to cut off investment in companies like Vedanta, which mostly derives from European and US banks). The problem in determining the best strategy is not one, in my experience, that besets communities “at the rock face”. The retrievable, experiential, history of resisting bad mines goes back several hundred years (especially in Latin America). Increasingly I feel that it’s those of us outside the field of battle who don’t know what to do.
Going further:
The Mines and Communities website
[1] Roger Moody, Rocks and Hard Places – the Globalisation of Mining, Zed Books, London, 2007
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