Nigeria 
Responsibility fight over oil blowout in Nigeria

afrol News, 7 May - While the oil blowout environmental disaster in the Niger Delta seems to have been stopped, the discussion on who is responsible has started. Ogoni activists demand that Shell pays for the environmental damages, while the oil company claims the blowout was due to sabotage, which means it should not pay. 

US specialists have brought the latest environmental emergency in southern Nigeria's volatile Niger Delta under control, Royal/Dutch Shell's Nigerian subsidiary said on Monday.

The three specialists from the Houston-based Boots & Coots International Well Control company were flown in on Friday to the affected area, Yorla Fields, to deal with a blow-out at a well which shot jets of crude oil and gas 30 metres into the air for the better part of last week. They brought it under control and re-capped it on Sunday, Shell officials said.

- The spill has stopped. The next step will be to establish the cause and do the clean up, a Shell spokesman told the UN news media IRIN. "The indications are that it was caused by sabotage."

Yorla is one of several oilfields with a capacity to produce a total of 28,000 barrels of crude oil per day in the Ogoni area, abandoned by Shell in 1993 in the face of opposition by local people alleging massive degradation of their environment by the oil giant and demanding more access to the wealth produced on their land. Shell officials have said that, in their hurry to leave Ogoniland, they were not allowed to adopt the proper procedure to ensure the safety of the oil wells.

Relations between Shell and some of the 500,000 Ogonis deteriorated after late dictator General Sani Abacha ordered the 1995 hanging of nine Ogoni rights activists, including renowned writer and environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa, following a murder trial widely condemned as flawed.

While the sustained repression the Ogoni experienced during a decade and a half of military rule has eased since the election of President Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999, Shell has yet to return to its abandoned oil wells and the latest incident appears likely to hamper reconciliation efforts. 

Ogoni activists and Shell officials have traded claims and counter-claims as to the possible cause of the spill. The president of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP), Ledum Mitee, accused Shell of seeking "scapegoats" for the spill instead of taking prompt steps to contain and clean it. 

- We are shocked that Shell is already levelling accusations against local people who have risked their lives and health to prevent a fire for the last three days, Mitee said in a news release on Thursday.

Pawariso Horsfall, commissioner for environment in the Rivers State government, which has jurisdiction over the Ogoni district, urged Shell during a visit to the disaster scene on Saturday not to rush to conclusions on the cause of the spill. Horsfall said the company had blamed sabotage for a similar incident in the area in 1999, which was later found to have been caused by mechanical failure.

However, Shell officials insist that available evidence points to the fact the affected well-head was tampered with. "We saw bolts that have been removed, so it will be difficult to rule out sabotage," an official said.

The issue of responsibility for spills is usually contentious in Nigeria's oil region because oil multinationals operating in the country refuse to pay compensation once sabotage is established. Some reports say locals whose farmlands and fishing ponds have been affected by the latest spill are threatening to hold Shell officials and contractors involved in the clean-up effort hostage to press demands for compensation. 

Health problems, mainly respiratory ailments and visual impairment, associated with chemical fumes given off by the spill, have also been reported. However, a Shell official told IRIN the company was not ruling out payment of compensation because of the especially sensitive nature of the Yorla Fields incident. "Because it's Ogoni involved and given the peculiar circumstances surrounding the incident, we can't rule out compensation," he said. 

The oil rich Niger Delta has been exploited by international oil companies for three decades and local activists complain that very little resources are left in the province while the environment is being destroyed. Several health risks for the local population have been documented. 

Oil spills after leaks both destroy the otherwise fertile soil and rich fishing grounds. Likewise, the chemical fumes given off by the spill causes direct health risks for the human and animal population. The local population, mostly living directly off local resources, rarely have been compensated for their losses. 

A less known problem are the gas flames that have been burning for three decades in the area. Gas is released when oil is produced, but has so far not been used as a resource but instead burned in site while the neighbouring population is without electricity. The gas flames have left up to one third of the country polluted.

Villages in the Delta have not experienced darkness in decades, and the temperature is more than ten degrees higher than it would be under normal circumstances. No compensations have ever been paid to the villagers.

The new Nigerian government has been the first to address the environmental and health problems caused by the gas flames. They were recently prohibited, and fines are to be paid for keeping them burning. The fines are however so low, that most oil companies prefer to pay them rather than developing the gas resource. Only the higher gas prices observed lately have curbed plans to develop the resource and put out the flames by 2008.

Sources: Based on IRIN (via Misanet) and SIDA

© afrol.com / IRIN    You can contact us at mail@afrol.com