Bonga spill: Senate Committee satisfied with clean up

KUNLE KALEJAYE

The Senate Committee on Environment has expressed satisfaction with the prompt and effective way that the Shell Group responded on the Bonga oil spill, which occurred on December 20.

The Committee, led by its Chairman, Senator Bukola Saraki, gave the clean bill of health after the team inspected the oil facility which lies 120km Southwest of the Niger Delta, in a water depth of over 1,000m.

He told journalists that “lots of work has been done by Shell to contain the oil spill,” adding that such a prompt response is what is expected of other oil companies operating in Nigeria.

The Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company, SNEPCo, the operator of the facility said at the time of the incident that the spill occurred a tanker was loading oil, led to the shutdown of the 200,000 barrel per day Floating Production Storage Offloading facility.

Shell, Nigeria’s largest producer said a week after that it had successfully contained the spill but not before close to 40,000 barrels had leaked into the Atlantic, which forced

“The oil spill has now been dispersed and contained. We had five ships working to disperse it. It was dispersed over the weekend and that was completed before it hit the shore,” Precious Okolobo, a Shell Nigeria spokesman said in a statement.

“It did not wash up on the shore,” he said, adding that chemical dispersants had combined with natural dispersion to clear the spill.

But environmental groups, Environmental Rights Action, ERA, and Friends of the Earth Nigeria, FoEN, said in a statement on its website that local communities in Odioama in the Bayelsa State in the Niger Delta region had spotted suspected slicks from the Bonga spill near the coast.

The group said its monitors visited the Atlantic shoreline in the company of some local fish farmers on December 26, where spreading spill was sighted. “In the course of the visit, spreading slick was sighted close to the coastline of Odioama and along St. Nicholas.”

Confirming the other slick spill, Saraki said, “We have also witnessed a third party oil spill but we cannot say if it is from Bonga or not. The third party oil spill has reached the shore line and we want to appeal to the communities that are affected to allow for a proper investigation and test to be carried out in order to ascertain the source of the third oil spill. We want to ensure that as a committee that we bring home the best international standard in dealing with issues like this.”

The Vice Chairman of the committee, Prof Ben Ayade, noted that oil spills on the shoreline of the Niger Delta region are necessarily crude, as some of them are refined products, adding that Shell should be commended for responding promptly.

The early containment of the spill came as a big surprise to the industry especially as the Minister of Environment, Hajia Hadiza Ibrahim Mailafia, who visited Bonga on December 24, estimated that the clean up would last for six week.

“For a complete clean up, we are looking at six weeks and to put things under control. We have brought in experts and we currently have seven vessels, two air craft and two helicopters that are making use of dispersants to clean the massive oil spill at the Bonga deepwater offshore facility and to ensure that the spill does not reach the shore line,” she said.

Mailafia led a joint ministerial team comprising Shell; the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency,NOSDRA; Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA; Nigeria Immigration Service, NIS; Nigeria Customs Service, NCS, and other technical partners.

The minister also admitted that the spill will affect aquatic life, saying that measures were being taken to ensure that the spill does not reach the shore line. The minister, the Director-General, NOSDRA, Sir Peter Idabor, and the Deputy Director, NIMASA, Captain Warredi Enisuoh, flew offshore to review clean-up efforts on the spill.

The spill comes four months after a United Nations report criticised Shell and the Nigerian government for contributing to 50 years of pollution in the Niger Delta region, which it described as the world’s largest ever oil clean-up, costing an initial $1 billion and taking up to 30 years.