BY Clara Nwachukwu
THE Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, said it has been supply portable water to communities affected in the Ogoni spill saga, which has occupied recent discourse on environmental pollution in the international scene.

Reacting to concerns over the slow pace of response by the Federal Government and other industry stakeholders in cleaning up the area as well as implementing the recommendations by the United Nations Environment Programme, UNEP Report on the Ogoni spill, Shell said it had already taking some proactive measures on the issue.

In an interactive session with journalists in Lagos last week, Mr. Tony Attah, the Vice President, Health Safety and Environment, HSE and Corporate Affairs, Shell Sub-Sahara Africa, said the water supply is being done in collaboration with the Rivers State Government.

According to him, “Work has advanced with the Presidential Committee looking into the recommendations of the UNEP Report, and while we are waiting for them, we are working with the Rivers State Government to supply water to the communities, and we have been doing this since a few days after the report was released.”

Attah argued that Shell, which own the oil and assets in Ogoni land was doing everything it can to implement the recommendations of the UNEP Report, adding that the Anglo-Dutch company was “working with the Presidential Committee to have a starting point.”

Chipping in, the Media Manager, Shell, Mr. Tony Okonedo, noted that the company cannot take the lead on the cleanup of the Ogoni spill as recommended in the report.

He stressed the need for a multi-stakeholder approach in dealing with oil spills, which he said are mostly as a result of crude theft and pipelines vandalism, and admitted that with regard to the UNEP Report, “there are areas where we need to work a little bit more.”

Sabotaging

of operations

Aside from the Ogoni spill, Shell also alerted that increasing cases of vandalism are sabotaging its operations in the Niger Delta, a development that has led to the shutting in of about 25,000 barrels per day production from the Imo River.

The company alleged that some 16 theft points were discovered in the Imo River field in September alone, adding that the production will remain shut in until the crude theft and refining activities have stopped.

The Shell HSE boss revealed that he was at the Senate a couple of weeks ago to address concerns on oil spills and effects on the environment from its areas of operations, saying that the company was very eager to bring about an end to the devastation.

In a statement on the recent spills, Shell disclosed that “There have been 10 additional oil bunkering incidents in the Eastern Niger Delta since the Shell Petroleum Development Company shut down production from Imo River on the 28th of August this year.”

The statement added that the development followed “an upsurge of sabotage activities, which have severely impacted the environment.”

Upon a flyover of the region, Attah was quoted as saying that “We are very disappointed that oil thieves are still at work…

This is why we call for concerted efforts to help stop this criminal activity, which not only puts the lives of the perpetrators and the public at risk, but also causes severe environmental impact and impacts the communities in the area. It also wastes badly needed revenue to finance development even in the same areas in which the activities are taking place.