Social Unrest Disrupting Energy Sector

By Geoff Porter

Dr. Geoff D. Porter is the founder and president of North Africa Risk Consulting, a political and security risk consulting firm specializing in the extractive industries in North Africa. In addition, Dr. Porter is an assistant professor at the Combating Terrorism Center at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

After having been idled by sit-ins for four years, Tunisia’s state-owned phosphate mines are open again. Why they closed was just one example of a trend that has emerged across North Africa in the wake of the Arab Spring. A potent brew of reinvigorated faith in the power of popular protest and expectations of a better future propelled local communities to hold extractive industries hostage and to disrupt their activities unless the companies gave in to their demands. More often than not, protesters want more of the companies’ profits  to stay in the protesters’ communities and less to  be sent to faraway capital cities. As one protester in southern Algeria said, “The cow is here, but the milk is there.” Protesters want more milk.

Here are some examples: In late 2012, drivers at Algeria’s largest natural gas facility went on strike, demanding more pay and more hires. Toward the end of 2013, guards at Libyan oil ports who wanted more money closed Libya’s four largest export terminals for almost six months. Other protesters with other demands – jobs, pay raises, healthcare, education – disrupted oil and gas facilities throughout the country. Libya’s oil and gas production is 60 percent below pre-Arab Spring levels. In 2014, protesters in the Algerian oil hub of Hassi Messaoud demanded more housing and social services. Elsewhere in Algeria, protesters in Salah tried to block efforts to initiate shale gas exploitation in early 2015. 

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