Zack Ponce Photo-Current-Argus Thursday's tour includes a fracking pond with fresh water on the site of the Concho oil and gas production facility.
CARLSBAD >> On the surface Southeastern New Mexico's expansive desert appears to lack any similarities to an equatorial nation thousands of miles away. Dig a little deeper, and the Pearl on the Pecos shares many aspects with the Republic of Uganda, at least when discussing oil.
The east African nation has been preparing to commercialize its industry for the past few years and sent an eight-member delegation consisting of engineers, geologists and an environmentalist to Eddy County this week to learn from industry experts at the Bureau of Land Management's Carlsbad office.
"This is really a first time for us," said Jim Amos, supervisory environmental protection specialist for the BLM.
Zack Ponce Photo-Current-Argus The tour of the oil fields includes a stop at drill rig 822 on Thursday.
The four-day tour began in meeting rooms and eventually led down winding dirt roads in the ever-expansive oil fields in the delta between Carlsbad, Artesia and Hobbs.
An oil and gas production facility, fracking pond and drill rig were just a handful of stops on an adventure designed to show the Ugandan delegation the process from start to finish.
"Our oil resources in Uganda are on land so what's appealing is the oil and gas resources in New Mexico are also on land," said Ernest Rubondo, commissioner of Uganda's Petroleum Exploration and Production Department, and head of the delegation to Carlsbad. "The oil and gas resources in New Mexico are near environmentally sensitive areas (and) the oil and
gas resources in Uganda are also near sensitive areas. So what brings us here is to share that experience."
Ugandan officials were impressed with the cooperation between oil companies and the local communities in Eddy County.
"It is very important that you have harmonious living with the communities and we have noticed from this trip that many of the people are compensated for having rigs of oil," said Fred Kabanda, a principal geologist for development for PEPD. "So that process is negotiated and very good, and we think we should be able to take it back with us."
Zack Ponce Photo-Current-Argus Wally Smith (left), a drilling supervisor for ConocoPhillips Permian Drilling Division, speaks with Fred Kabanda, a member of the Ugandan delegation, about drill techniques on the rig on Thursday.
Another technology that impressed the delegation was horizontal drilling, a technique that has been utilized in the Permian Basin for decades. It is an option Uganda "will be taking up," Kabanda said.
The United States has teamed with Uganda through a program called the Energy Governance and Capacity Initiative (EGCI). The program, funded and managed by the U.S. Department of State, serves to help train and share energy education and policies with the next generation of potentially significant oil and gas producers.
"(It's mutually beneficial because) it directly benefits the Department of the Interior's domestic mission," said Levi White, a project manager with the U.S. Department of the Interior's International Technical Assistance Program. "It's good leadership development for our guys here in the field and it always helps generate 'best practices' for us and other governments."
BLM staff has traveled to Uganda while delegates from Uganda have previously visited cities such as Houston, Denver, and Bakersfield, Calif. within the last few years. The first visit to Carlsbad occurred in 2012 when members of the Ugandan parliament studied U.S. environmental regulations.
The Petroleum Act of 2013, signed by Ugandian President Yoweri Museveni, allows foreign oil companies to sign lease agreements to drill and produce oil within the nation's borders.
So far Total S.A., China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) and Tullow Oil have signed agreements to jumpstart the still nascent industry.
The first commercial oil reserve was discovered in 2006 and most of Uganda's 120 wells that have been drilled lie in the Lake Albert Basin which straddles the western border of Uganda and the northeastern border of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
One of the most promising sites for industry, according to government officials, is located within the boundary of Murchison Falls National Park, home to many animals including the Cape buffalo, elephants, hippos and crocodiles.
"Socially I think it caused a lot of anxiety in the beginning but apparently now we have a better communication strategy that has come to help people (become more informed)," said Jane Mbabazi Byaruhanga, an environmentalist with PEPD, about the initial drilling in Uganda. "We haven't seen any contamination in the exploration side and we don't envision any in the production side."
Kabanda said he is not worried about any adverse effects from drilling in Murchison Falls and hinted the Republic of Uganda plans to commercially pump oil in the park.
"I think the resources have to be evaluated together whether it is oil or national parks, or animals," Kabanda said. "And both must coexist because you cannot take one and leave the other. And so, we have to find a means of coexisting and therefore developing both resources for the national development."
Uganda has historically been ravaged by political instability like many other African nations. The solution appears to be an oil industry that was collateral damage.
The British Empire colonized Uganda in the late 1800's and later drilled the first oil well in 1920, two years after the end of World War I. Thereafter exploration was "on and off," according Kabanda.
"(For) the first 80 or so years there was varied exploration because the British colonists started looking for oil," said He said. "There were some sayings that there was oil because it was coming from the ground, sipping. They drilled one well in 1938 but thereafter nothing was done."
Consistent oil exploration didn't begin in Uganda until the 1980s, nearly two decades after the nation won its independence from Britain in 1962. Modern exploration took off in the early 2000s.
Reporter Zack Ponce can be reached at (575) 628-5546.