ABSTRACT

This chapter offers a political economic analysis of the Magurchara gas explosion in Moulvibazar, Bangladesh (June 14, 1997), at a site operated by Occidental Petroleum Corporation (‘Occidental’). The gas in the Magurchara Gas Field continued to burn for 17 days, causing harm to the people living nearby, as well as infrastructure loss and grave environmental destruction, including damage to rainforests, farmlands, and tea plantations. This chapter describes how the Magurchara gas explosion exemplifies the nature of capitalist resource exploitation, in which both national and global institutions contribute to disruptions in the socioecological system. It begins by providing a brief history of exploration for and extraction of natural resources in Bangladesh. Next, it offers a short account of the Magurchara explosion with heightened attention to its socioecological consequences. From here, it engages in a critical examination of corporate negligence in and after the disaster, illustrating how and why the Bangladeshi government is complicit with corporate interests. The ensuing section analyses why the negotiations over compensation fell through, leading the author to unpack what went wrong in the negotiations over compensation and to highlight how the consequences of the Magurchara gas explosion are continuing today and how the demand for justice for socioecological damage remains largely obscured and unresolved. The chapter concludes with a meditation on the implications for scholars studying the political economy of environmental harm.