“It’s really very, very, very dilapidated. … It’s really filthy, it’s not a safe platform. We had to block off some parts of the platform because the floor was covered in oil, and cables were lying around everywhere. It was dreadful.” These statements were collected by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), a US- based nonprofit organization specialized in exposing environmental crimes. In May 2025, they published a report on the French oil company Perenco, revisiting an incident in Gabon that went almost unnoticed by the general public. On March 20, 2024, six people died on the Becuna oil platform off the coast of Gabon, in an explosion that occurred during a reconditioning operation. An explosion that, according to statements from witnesses on site at the time, could have been prevented. Only a few days earlier, another team had flagged safety issues on the platform, following oil leaks reported two weeks prior. “The necessary safety measures were not in place. When an accident happens on an oil site, this means that certain basic safety protocols haven’t been followed. And that was the case at Becuna,” states one of the sources cited in the report, who preferred to stay anonymous out of fear of retaliation from the company. The pollution of Oba field operated by Perenco in Gabon. Image courtesy of Bernard Christian Rekoula / EIA. Georges Mpaga, president of a network of civil society organizations in Gabon, the Réseau des organisations libres de la société civile pour la bonne gouvernance du…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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