EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Oil From Red Sand

Rhourde El Baguel Oilfield
Algeria, northern Africa

Explanation:  Mouse over this week's picture to view a Google Earth image of the same scene. 

We are flying over the red sands of Tunisia in northeastern Algeria, of northern Africa.  Below, the seemingly endless red sands of the Sahara Desert belie the black gold beneath.  There is oil here, and lots of it.

This is the Rhourde El Baguel oilfield.  Upwards of perhaps a thousand people work in this remote and immensely isolated location.  You can see oil wells, pump stations, pipelines, holding tanks, office buildings, and even an airstrip in the top right of the photo, used to shuttle workers in and out on month-long stints.  

I took my photos in November, 2008.  As you mouse over the main photo above, you can view a Google Earth image dated 24 August 2005, showing one of the oil wells on fire, emitting a dense black smoke plume.  

The Rhourde El Baguel oilfield is Algeria's second largest
oil producing site.
  

Google Earth image of the above photo.

Algeria is garnering high revenues from export of oil and natural gas.  The major oil company, Sonatrach, operates more than 2,400 miles (3,860 km) of oil pipelines in the country, the major lines to transport oil to export terminals along the coast in the north.  

Future plans of the country include continuing to expand oil and natural gas production, and doubling the pipeline capacities to pump oil to the export terminals.  Whether such plans are accompanied by concerns for potential environmental impacts, such as the oil well fire noted above, or spillage from oil transport, or effects increased presence of oil pipelines on wildlife of the region, is unknown.