Business
Muted response to Nigeria oil spill: A case of double standards?
Shell’s pipelines in Nigeria’s onshore Niger Delta spill often, and the company usually blames this on sabotage attacks and oil theft, though it did not in this case.
On its website, Shell says almost 30,000 barrels spilled from the operations of its Nigerian venture in 2010 and there were more than 150 separate spills.
It said “less than 40,000 barrels of oil” had leaked into the ocean in the latest spill, equal to almost 6.4 million litres.
Nigeria’s National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) put the spill at 20,000 barrels on Thursday and said it was the biggest in Nigeria since 1998, when some 40,000 barrels leaked from a ruptured Mobil pipeline off the coast.
Pollution In The Niger Delta
The latest spill comes four months after a United Nations (U.N.) report criticised Shell and the Nigerian government for contributing to 50 years of pollution in a region of the Niger Delta which it says needs the world’s largest ever oil clean-up, costing an initial US$1 billion and taking up to 30 years.
Shell’s global website includes a prominent link to updates on the spill and photographs taken at the site, including of a damaged export line at Bonga identified as the source of the leak.
In an update on Thursday, Shell said an oil sheen on the ocean’s surface had thinned due to a combination of natural factors and the use of dispersant. Five ships were applying dispersant and more equipment and vessels are being mobilized.
“Since Tuesday, when we became aware of this regrettable leak at our Bonga offshore facility, substantial progress has been made in mitigating the consequences,” Shell’s chairman in Nigeria, Mutiu Sunmonu, said.
