-By Fred Ojiegbe
It has been established that oil companies in Nigeria have not been complying with oil spill regulations, data obtained from the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), the Federal Government oil spill monitoring agency in Nigeria, has shown.
According to the data, a total of 494 oil spill incidents occurred between January 2020 and May 2021, with 2020 alone recording about 373 incidents of oil spill.
It noted that under the law, oil spills must be stopped by the facility operators within 24 hours of being notified of the oil spill, whether the spill was caused by the company’s activities or third-party action.
In other words, it is the duty of facility operators to ensure that oil flow is closed off as soon as it is detected.
However, since January 2020, oil companies have failed to stop oil spill within 24 hours of the incident in 110 cases, and in 133 cases, oil companies stopped oil spill within 24 hours.
In 251 cases, due to missing data in NOSDRA’s dataset, it was not specified when the oil spill was closed off.
The data also stated that period under review, a total of 26,178.34 barrels of oil were spilled by 26 oil companies.
The Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) was said to be the highest offender within this period.
In 80 cases, it failed to stop oil spill within 24 hours, and in 82 cases, it stopped oil spill in 24 hours.
Also, SPDC topped the list with the longest response time to oil spill during this period.
It stopped an oil spill after 185 days in an incident that occurred due to sabotage at the 28” Bomu-Bonny Trunckline at Alaskiri, Rivers State on the 28th of January, 2020.
The oil spill was stopped on July 31, 2020.
The impact of the spill was labelled, ‘Non-leaking and no impact on the environment’.
The data noted that SPDC did not report this incident in its January 2020 report.
In another instance recorded on March 23, 2021, which is the second slowest response to oil spill stoppage, SPDC was said to have responded to an oil spill in 20 days.
The oil spill was caused by corrosion, and it affected 3” Imo River Well63T at the Owaza community, Etche Local Government, Rivers State.
The impact was labelled, ‘Dripped of crude oil within right of way’.
It was stopped on April 12, 2020.
However, in SPDC’s March 2021 oil spill report, this incident was recorded to have occurred on March 24, 2021.
Additional information by SPDC on the oil spill event attributed the delay to “security concerns”.
Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC) recorded the third slowest response to oil spill stop, which was 16 days, according to NOSDRA.
The incident was caused by sabotage at the 16” Tuomo Ogbainbiri Delivery Gas Line at Ayamasa, at Ekeremor Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, and the impact was labelled, ‘Gaseous Emission (Condensate)’.
The oil companies, who complied fully with the oil spill stoppage timeline of 24 hours from January 2020 till May 2021, are: KAMLIK Nigeria Limited, Pipelines and Products Marketing Company (PPMC), PPMC (NPSC) and Total Upstream Nigeria (TUPNI), according to NOSDRA’s data.
The companies with missing data during this period are: Mobil Producing Nigeria Limited (MPN), National Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), Heritage Energy Operational Service Limited, Enageed Resources Limited, Platform Petroleum Limited, Infravision Ltd Company, Esso Exploration and Production and Production Nigeria Limited, First Hydrocarbon Nigeria, ND Western, Midwestern Oil & Gas Corporation, Neconde and Pan Ocean Oil Corporation Nigeria Limited (POOCN).
Out of the 494 incidents of oil spill recorded within the period, oil spill clean-up data was recorded scantily for only 40 incidents.
First Hydrocarbon Nigeria started cleaning an oil spill after 13 months and 10 days, accounting for the longest response time in the 40 incidents recorded.
The incident, caused by sabotage, happened at Isoko-North, Delta State at the NPDC OGINI – Eriemu 10” Delivery Line at Eniagbedhi Owhe on February 23, 2021.
It started cleaning the oil spill on March 10, 2021, and ended the clean-up process on April 22, 2021.
NAOC recorded the fastest clean up response.
On three occasions, on January 9, 2020, January 11, 2020 and January 30, 2020 at the Ebocha 9l Flowline at Mgbede, Rivers State, and the 10” Clough Creek/Tebidaba Pipeline at Gbaraun, Bayelsa State, oil spill clean-up was achieved in 24 hours.
In 2018, Amnesty International (AI), an international human rights organisation, published a report that accused Shell and Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC), subsidiaries of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) and ENI, respectively, of being negligent with oil spill clean-up.
Long delays in conducting the Joint Investigative Visit (JIV) to ascertain the extent of damage of the oil spill to the environment, slow response to shutting off the flow of oil, and contradicting evidence pointing to their activities instead of recorded oil spill caused by “third party interference”, are some of the issues raised by Amnesty.
The 2011 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report on Ogoniland reiterated that, “Any delay in cleaning up an oil spill wiould lead to oil being washed away by rainwater, traversing communities and farmland and almost always ending up in the creeks”.
As with Ogoniland, in Nigeria, communities are at the receiving end of oil spills.
Even when SPDC, in keeping with the polluter-pays principle, accepted liability for the clean-up of Ogoniland, 11 years after the oil spill, the UNEP study revealed that cleaning up Ogoniland could take about 30 years.
NOSDRA noted that sabotage and theft are the highest causes of oil spill in oil producing states.
Consequently, if an oil spill is not caused by the company’s activities, compensation would not be paid to the affected communities.
Stakeholders Democracy Network (SDN), a watchdog organisation, in one of its publications titled, ‘International Compensation Systems for Oil Spills in Relation to Reform in Nigeria’, stated that the compensation structure for oil spill in Nigeria does not measure up to international standards, as they come with “highly variable rates of compensation and high legal costs”.
Also, it stated that because oil spills instigated by third parties are not compensated in Nigeria, “many communities are blighted by the illegal actions of the few”.