Petronas Urged by Ethiopian Rebels to Avoid Ogaden (Update1)

By Jason Mclure

Jan. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Petroliam Nasional Bhd. was urged by rebels in Ethiopia’s Ogaden Basin not to resume oil exploration in the eastern region.

“Petronas and similar companies should consider the damage to their reputation if they effectively enter into a regime engaged in war crimes,” the Ogaden National Liberation Front said in a statement e-mailed to reporters today in the capital, Addis Ababa. “We urge Petronas to exercise corporate responsibility and steer clear” of the Ogaden region.

The warning comes after a Jan. 3 article in The Reporter, an Addis Ababa-based newspaper, which said Petronas had hired a United Arab Emirates-based company to resume exploration in the region.

Ethnic Somali rebels from the ONLF are seeking independence for Ethiopia’s Ogaden region, an arid area twice the size of England largely inhabited by nomads. In April 2007, the group attacked a Petronas exploration site operated by China’s Zhongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau, killing nine Chinese workers and 65 Ethiopians.

The attack triggered a counterinsurgency campaign by the Ethiopian army in the second half of 2007. The area is still under the control of Ethiopia’s military, which has barred foreign reporters from traveling independently in the region.

Tania Landsberg, group communications manager at Petronas’s African unit Engen couldn’t immediately comment when Bloomberg News reached her on her mobile phone. Petronas owns 80 percent of Engen.

No viable oil reserves have yet been discovered in eastern Ethiopia. Ethiopia and Somalia fought wars in 1963-1964 and 1977 over the region.

Wahde Belay, a spokesman for Ethiopia’s Foreign Ministry, didn’t answer calls to his mobile phone. Calls to Alemayehu Tegenu, Ethiopia’s minister for mines and energy, didn’t connect.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jason McLure in Addis Ababa via Johannesburg at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: January 6, 2009 10:59 EST