Blogs
Videos
Podcasts
White Papers
Oil Spills in Nigeria: Where’s the Concern?
June 30, 2010 – 8:53 amBy now we’ve heard a ton about the BP Deepwater oil spill.
How the Deepwater spill is a huge environmental disaster. How the US government is stepping in. How it’s the biggest oil spill since the Exxon Valdez.
 |
| Nigeria |
But what we don’t hear about, especially in the United States, is about other oil spills in other countries.
Which is shocking, considering, according to this article on cnn.com, Nigeria’s Niger Delta area has been suffering the effects of multiple spills. In fact, the area is one of the most oil polluted areas in the world, with an estimated 9 million to 13 million gallons of oil spilled. And oil is reportedly still spilling out.
In fact, there has been so much oil spilled in Nigeria that it makes the Exxon Valdez disaster look like a mere nuisance in comparison.
So what’s with the radio silence?
What’s really interesting is that while BP is currently being vilified in the United States, Shell, another huge oil company, was forced to pay $15.5 million in a civil case in conjunction to spills in Nigeria. But there is no ill-will towards Shell in the United States.
Of course, the BP Deepwater oil spill was tragic, and we shouldn’t forget that. But we should also work to undo the damage caused by spills across the world.
It’s crucial that we focus our clean up efforts and our safety procedures globally, not just locally.
By Jessica Livingston
4 Responses to “Oil Spills in Nigeria: Where’s the Concern?”
Yes, Jessica, it is imperative that we focus on procedures that will mitigate oil spills. But since it cannot be totally avoided/contained, it is better safety procedures and clean up efforts is done by all. There is something that i would like to suggest here; Other oil Majors should assist in the clean up of Large/Voluminous oil spills just like the recent Deep water oil spill in Gulf of Mexico). The events that seems to threaten our existence/well being needs the worlds attention because in one way or another it will come to us.
Note: Oil does not mix with water so Let BP suck up the affected areas with extreme care to minimize the intake of much water and more oil connected with pipes to the production platform for separation.
By Ordia Collins on Jul 6, 2010
It’s a national disaster, but politically covered and suffered by the masses. It happened once in my village and the compensation was shared amongs those affected, that was in 2005, but the effect of the damage has made farming in that region unprofitable till date (July 2010). I think more control measures for such “unaviodable occurences” should be looked into before compensation or (minor payments) be made. Else we’ll have few agricultural produce, a potentially dangerous and unsafe/hazardous environment in the near future.
By AGI on Jul 7, 2010
Sure there are plenty of spills in the Delta, the main problem is that most (98%) of the spills are caused by people (most of which who live in these neighbouring communities) trying to steal the oil. After the holes are drilled they are not reported as people are busy stealing the oil, which they don’t perpetrate in an very environmentally friendly way. Then when the leak in discovered by the oil company the local community normally prevents access until bribes are paid and ’security’ jobs are given. This is all from personal experience, I lived in the delta for 4 yrs.
By Blamed on Sep 21, 2010