Protests bring transparency but not stability to Tunisia's oil sector
Last year's mass protests succeeded in gaining public access to Tunisia's oil records, but the progress hasn't been enough to heal a hydrocarbon sector still plagued by labor unrest.
For several months in 2015, the streets of Tunisian cities were filled with protesters wielding handmade signs and empty petrol canisters. “Winou el petrole?” ("Where is the oil?") incensed citizens cried. They were protesting the Tunisian government’s restrictions on public access to oil records.
“The government has nothing to hide concerning the subject of energy,” Zakaria Hamid, Minister of Energy, Industry and Mines resolutely declared at a press conference in June of that year, following protests. Anyway, he continued, “Tunisia is not an oil- and petroleum-rich country.”
At first glance, that claim might seem hard to believe. To the east, there’s Libya, with 48 billion barrels of crude oil, accounting for 38% of the African continent’s total. Westward lies Algeria, whose primarily state-run hydrocarbons sector is so prolific it accounts for 25% of the country’s gross domestic product and 95% of its total export earnings.
Sandwiched in the middle of these oil giants is Tunisia, which mostly has the same geographical landscape as its neighbors — and shares the Pelagian Basin with Libya — but whose oil and gas sector is much more limited.
