Oil money makes the Nigerian government tick and certainly keeps many multinational oil companies in the business. Be sure, crude oil makes the world go round. You can tell Saudi Arabia is currently using the oil power to caution other producers, especially world powers like Russia.
Nigeria gains tremendously from crude oil, it actually builds its budget revenue around the price and volume produced. But its oil-rich communities of the Niger Delta region constantly breathe spilt oil and flared gas as a result of the oil exploration. You can say 47 million Nigerians are daily battling with deteriorating human health, aquatic life, vegetation, and wildlife.
Recent research estimated the resultant environmental degradation caused by gas flaring, dredging of larger rivers, oil spillage and reclamation of land across the Niger delta costs US$758million every year with the local communities bearing 75% of this cost in the form of polluted water, infertile farmland and lost harvests.
A review of NOSDRA’s publication of current official data on oil spills in Nigeria shows that very little cleanup is done in the wake of the oil spill in Nigeria. Between 2018 and March 2020, only two hundred and sixty-eight (268) out of one thousand three hundred and eleven (1311) oil spill incidents were cleaned up.
DATAPHYTE analysis of oil spillage data from oil spill monitor of NOSDRA shows that between 2018 and February 2020, 31% of the reported oil spillage incidents were due to technical faults such as equipment failure, operational maintenance, and corrosion.
Two hundred and thirty of the oil spill incidents were cleaned by just one company (Nigerian Agip Oil Company) which had four hundred and forty (440) oil spill incidents. Technically, that is to say, 27 of the other companies managed the cleaning of 38 other oil spill incidents. Despite what seems like a massive cleanup activity done by Agip with respect to the cleanup activities of other companies, it still ranks second on the list of oil spill incidents not cleaned up.
Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) seems resolute to continue degrading the environment of the Niger Delta region with a total of 411 unclean oil spillage. Within this period, SPDC has had 25,306.87 barrels spilt from 425 incidents with just 14 reports of cleanup. This is the same company that explored the Ogoni land oil fields left uncleaned up to present. Aiteo Exploration and Production has the second-highest barrels reported spill (10,164) without any report of clean up in nineteen (19) oil spill incidents.
The rate of oil spillage in Nigeria
These oil spill actions have continued to make living in the Niger Delta communities worse. In some communities in the Niger Delta, it is now impossible for people to go down the creeks to fish or swim because the creeks and rivers will be filled with crude oil. For a region that was predominantly known for the commercialized sale of seafood most communities in the region no longer have seafood available for even family consumption.
According to the oil spill monitor, as of February 2020, 68 spills involving 2,255 barrels have been recorded and a total of 1311 spill incidents involving 62,072 barrels were recorded between 2018 and 2020. Rivers, Delta, Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom and Abia states have had the highest incidents of oil spillage respectively between 2018 and 2020.
It is reported that 1.89miliion barrels out of 2.4million barrels of petroleum were spilt into the Niger Delta region between 1976 and 1996 in 4,835 incidents. Another report puts the spill record to be 6, 817 spills between 1976 and 2001.
Also, the United Nations Environments Assessment of Ogoni land report handed over to the government since august 2011 is yet to be implemented. All efforts around the cleanup, from the institution of the HYPREP (Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project) to the Federal Government flagged off remediation of contaminated sites in Ogoni Land in 2016 and the implementation of the first phase of the remediation of the oil spill in Ogoni all seem futile and politicized.
According to an investigation done by PREMIUM TIMES, all of the 16 companies awarded contracts for the first phase of the exercise by the Buhari administration have no experience whatsoever in the remediation of oil spills. This level of reluctance to abate a survival threatening menace remains best described in the words of Saatah Nubari as “Man’s inhumanity to Man”
Preventive measures and regulatory sanctions and accountability
Although the majority of oil spill causes could be attributed to sabotage/theft and vandalism of pipeline facilities in the process of bunkering, an unacceptable percentage of the oil spill causes can be attributed to other technical faults of the oil production and exploration company.
Early corrosion detection and prevention mechanisms need to be adopted to help curtail spillage from corrosion. Most pipelines usually have an estimated life span of twenty years but most of the existing pipelines have been laid more than twenty years ago. Adequate pipeline maintenance and replacement strategies are also encouraged to limit the spill of oil by this cause
While oil spillage might not be entirely inevitable due to sabotage and bunkering, the management of spills most especially through cleanups is necessary to keep a healthy environment and safe ecosystem. In Nigeria, the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) established by Act No. 15 of 2006 as a parastatal under the Federal Ministry of Environment, is the Lead Agency for oil spill management in Nigeria. It is also the institutional framework for the implementation of the National Oil Spill Contingency Plan (NOSCP). The NOSDRA allocates resources and roles to organizations such as NEMA, the ministry of health, police and the military, in enforcing adequate management of oil spillage.
The rate of compliance of oil-producing and exploring companies to oil spill cleanup raises a question mark on the NOSDRA’s efforts to create, nurture and sustain a zero-tolerance of oil spill incidents in the Nigerian environment. A further concern is how much effort is NOSDRA and other sustainable environment regulatory agencies making to ensure that oil-producing and exploring companies are held accountable for oil spillage in their own facility. How many of these companies are financially penalized according to the national oil spillage detection and response agency act?
More information on the number of companies penalized, the number of companies that have paid their financial penalty, and reasons why companies have not carried out clean-ups at oil spill sites/facilities need to be made available alongside other data published by NOSDRA on the oil monitor platform. This will enable the public to keep track of sites that have not been cleaned up as a result of access to certain areas around the Niger River area or due oil industry operators not possessing the minimum stockpile of spill control resources to respond to spills from their own facilities.