On 19 December, the $100m, state-of-the-art Atwood Achiever drill ship started drilling in Western Sahara’s offshore Cap Boujdour concession, in a development that could prove pivotal for power dynamics in North Africa.

It is the first well to be drilled in the former Spanish colony since the 1970s and, according to the well’s operator, US-based Kosmos Energy, it could tap as much as a billion barrels of oil. This would make it one of the biggest oil discoveries in the past three years, as well as a huge opportunity to boost business, accelerate development and increase prosperity in the region.

“A commercial discovery would potentially lead to billions of dollars of foreign investment and job creation,” says Thomas Golembeski, a spokesman from Kosmos Energy.

But benefits for all parties are by no means guaranteed. The drilling programme is contentious and poses a threat to stability in the disputed region.

Polisario opposition

Kosmos Energy’s exploration operations are vigorously opposed by the Western Sahara’s Algeria-backed indigenous separatist movement, the Polisario Front, which says a hydrocarbons discovery will strengthen Morocco’s position, making the group’s struggle for independence more difficult.

The Polisario Front waged war with the Moroccan government between 1975 and 1991, and currently controls a southern tranche of Western Sahara on behalf of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), while the majority of the territory is controlled by Morocco.

On 8 December, as the drilling date approached, the Polisario Front conducted military manoeuvres in the strip of Western Sahara that is under its control, using armoured patrols and pick-up trucks with mounted anti-aircraft guns.

Sparking conflict

Kamal Fadel, a spokesman for the SADR’s petroleum authority, tells MEED that the exercises were initiated to show that, despite being vastly outgunned, the Polisario Front is willing to pick up arms against the Moroccan government if pushed.

“Drilling offshore in Western Sahara is an act of aggression,” he says. “It is an illegal act and a theft of resources. It is an element that could well convince the Saharawis that they have to do something to get things moving and show the world that they want their country back. It may well cause the ignition of this conflict again.”

Uneasy truce

The current ceasefire was brokered by the UN in 1991, ending 16 years of war that saw thousands of fighters killed and between 100,000-150,000 people displaced, many of whom remain in refugee camps beyond Western Sahara’s borders.

One of the conditions of the ceasefire was that a referendum on independence would be held. Voting was originally scheduled for 1992, but disputes over voter eligibility created delays and the referendum has yet to be held. None of the issues that drove the conflict has been settled and Rabat maintains an uneasy truce with the Polisario Front.

Regional impact

The Western Sahara dispute has remained a sore point in regional politics over the years, with relations between Morocco and Algeria, which backs the Polisario Front, deteriorating significantly as oil exploration activities have ramped up.

Over 2014, both countries started to build security walls along their shared border, which has been closed since 1994. On 19 October, the Moroccan government accused an Algerian soldier of opening fire on a group of civilians from a border post.

Tensions were further stoked on 11 December, when Morocco’s Foreign Minister Salaheddine Mezouar accused Algerian secret services of leaking what appear to be classified government documents relating to Western Sahara to deliberately stir up trouble ahead of the first well being drilled.

Some of the documents released in the leak suggest Moroccans bribed diplomats and foreign journalists to publicly support Rabat’s position in the Western Sahara dispute. Mezouar promised that Morocco would “present arguments and evidence that prove Algeria’s involvement in fuelling the conflict over the Moroccan Sahara”.

Legal ruling

At the centre of the regional debate about the legitimacy of Kosmos Energy’s drilling is a UN legal ruling from 2002. It says future exploration in the territory would be legal if it was done for the benefit of the local population, but “to proceed in disregard of the interests and wishes of the people of Western Sahara would be in violation of the international law”.

UK-based risk consultancy Control Risks says the ruling leaves companies drilling for oil in Western Sahara in a vulnerable position.

“There are certainly potential legal and reputational complications in operating offshore in Western Sahara, and these relate primarily to the unresolved legal status,” says Geoffrey Howard, a Middle East and North Africa analyst at Control Risks. “It would be easy for
pressure groups and Saharawi organisations to claim that exploiting Western Sahara’s oil would be to the detriment of the indigenous Saharawi people.”

Both Kosmos Energy and the Polisario Front claim that international law is on their side and say they have the support of the Western Saharan people.

Freedom of speech

In reality, gauging the wishes of the people of Western Sahara is almost impossible under current circumstances due to restrictions on political representation and freedom of speech in the territories controlled by SADR and Morocco.

In Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara, separatist political groups such as the Polisario Front are banned, flying the Saharawi flag is illegal and any protests are tightly controlled.

Visiting journalists are routinely shadowed by Moroccan security forces and Human Rights Watch has reported a “pattern of convicting Western Sahara activists on criminal charges in unfair trials”, a factor likely to make those with separatist leanings unwilling to voice them in public.

Saharawi support

Although the Polisario Front claims to represent the majority of the Saharawi people, just how much support it has is difficult to verify. In the Algerian refugee camps and the strip of Western Sahara controlled by the front, the group’s leadership dominates political discourse and has banned all other parties.

Bachir Edkhil is a Saharawi living in Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara and is the founder of Alter Forum, a non-governmental organisation dedicated to the social and economic development of the Western Sahara region. He says many Saharawis in the area controlled by Rabat have been won over by sustained investment in the region from the Moroccan government.

“Algeria has lost the hearts and minds of the Western Sahara people to Morocco, which has supported us,” says Edkhil. “The drilling operation could benefit the population if it is managed correctly. The youth are frustrated and need jobs. We want the tools to grow, and oil could be the answer to this.”

Support for the Polisario Front has also been diluted in Western Sahara by tens of thousands of Moroccan settlers who have been encouraged to move to the territory by Rabat, using tax breaks.

Uncertain ground

In January, the author of the 2002 UN legal opinion, former UN legal counsel Hans Corell, said the 2011 contract signed by Kosmos Energy and Morocco violated international law, adding to the legal uncertainty surrounding current exploration activities in Western Sahara.

Corell said Morocco had broken international law by referring to Western Sahara in the contract as the “southern provinces of the kingdom of Morocco”. He called this wording “completely incompatible” with the UN-mediated peace process, and said it violates the principles of international law applicable to mineral resource activities in non-self-governing territories, the term used by the UN for countries that have yet to complete the decolonisation process.

Corell went on to say he is “looking to the Security Council and the responsibility that the council has under the UN Charter”.

United in inaction

Action from the UN is unlikely. Over recent years, it has shown increasing reluctance to push Morocco over the Western Sahara issue, despite the kingdom defying the organisation on several occasions, including refusing to allow its special representative for the territory to set foot in the country.

“As long as France has a vote on the Security Council, we will not see any UN sanctions to prevent companies partnering in Morocco’s drilling programme,” says Erik Hagen, chairman of Western Sahara Resource Watch, a group that campaigns against the exploitation of resources in the disputed territory.

Anouar Boukhars, a Western Sahara specialist and an assistant professor of international relations at McDaniel College in the US, agrees. He says that for most nations with a stake in the Western Sahara issue, continuation of the status quo is the most attractive scenario.

“Most great powers, including the US, wish that the disputed territory remains Moroccan,” wrote Boukhars in a 2013 paper.

“Western governments fear the possibility of another weak state, almost the size of Britain, appearing in an area already afflicted by many fragile or failing states.”

Avoiding violence

The UN’s reluctance to intervene makes it likely the current oil exploration operations will continue without disruption.

If violence is avoided and oil is discovered, the drilling is likely to benefit both Kosmos Energy and Morocco, and could well benefit the Saharawi people if both parties make good on their promises to use oil revenues to develop the region.

However, avoiding violence over the long term may not be easy. Heightened tensions between Algeria and Morocco, aggressive rhetoric from the Polisario Front, and the possibility of a new billion-barrel oil find to fight over all make unrest increasingly likely.

“The return of the hostilities and war cannot be ruled out,” says the Polisario Front’s Fadel. “It’s always there as an option in case of failure by the UN. It is unfortunate that companies such as Kosmos Energy have entered into this conflict. Their actions could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.”

Follow Wil Crisp on Twitter: @bilgribs