By Samuel Oyadongha

Yenagoa—An oil spill has been reported at the Osiama oil field owned by Nigerian Agip Oil Company, NAOC, in Bayelsa State.

According to Environmental Rights Action/Friends of Earth Nigeria, ERA/FoEN, report, the spill was discovered by its field monitors on April 18, while investigating another spill incident.

The report by Mr Alagoa Morris, Head of Field Operation, ERA/FoEN, Bayelsa, yesterday in Yenagoa, said: “Field monitors of the Environmental Rights Action visited the Ondewari/Okpotuwari environment on April 18, 2015. It was for the purpose of visiting a spill impacted site along Agip’s Tebidaba-Ogboinbiri Flow Line.

“However, while in the field, ERA’s guides also informed ERA that there was another fresh oil spill in the area. And so, soon after concluding with the Tebidaba-Ogboinbiri pipeline, ERA was led to the other spill site, some kilometers away.

“This spill under reference occurred at a location opposite the three oil well heads operated by Agip and across the Ossiama Creek where the pipeline continued,” ERA/FoEN stated.

The report quoted Omietimi Yeiyei, a local hunter in Ondewari community, Southern Ijaw Local Government Area of the state, as having discovered the spill sometime in April.

“I hunt with dogs and during one of my hunting expeditions, I noticed someone from a neighbouring community scooping what seemed like crude oil into jerricans which he took away from the environment.

“So I decided to investigate and that was how we discovered the spill not long ago. I tried to investigate whether there were signs of fresh diggings in the immediate environment but didn’t find any. That was why we thought the spill must have resulted from equipment failure,” Yeiyei said.

The environmental group noted with regret that officials of the oil firm were yet to take steps to contain the spill several weeks after it was reported to them.