Nigerian officials have suspended fishing off the southern coast after about 40,000 barrels (1.7 million gallons) of crude oil was spilled from a Shell production platform in the Bonga oil field.
The oil leaked into the Atlantic Ocean on December 20, 2011 during what the company called a “routine operation” to transfer oil to a tanker from Shell’s Bonga floating production, storage and off-take vessel.
The oily sheen covered an estimated 350-square-mile area off the oil-rich Niger Delta. Shell has shut down the entire Bonga oil field, a site 75 miles off the coast that produces 200,000 barrels of oil and gas a day.
An investigation is underway to determine how 40,000 barrels of oil spilled while being loaded onto the tanker. Shell says a break in a transfer line is to blame.
Since the leak, teams from the Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company, SNEPCo, have worked around the clock with international oil spill experts, using a combination of dispersants and booms to control the leaked oil, the company said in a statement.
SNEPCo said on December 26 that the oil from the Bonga spill has “largely dispersed.” The company helicoptered journalists over the spill on December 26 and then flew to a nearby location to see where, company officials said, “third party oil, believed to have been spilled from another vessel in the area, has hampered SNEPCo’s efforts to tackle the leak from Bonga.”
“This oil has come ashore on short areas of coastline. SNEPCo will clean up this oil, both on and offshore,” the company said.
The company says it will continue to monitor the area using boats, aircraft and satellite imagery, and will “take appropriate steps to disperse any further persistent oil sheens.”
But contrary to company statements downplaying the seriousness of the spill, local residents say it is spreading and has impacted 13 coastal villages. People living on the coast said Monday that officials are not doing enough to clean up the spill.
Fishermen in Akwa Ibom State are complaining about the suspension directive issued by the Nigerian Oil Spills Detection and Response Agency, NOSDRA, Reverend Samuel Ayadi, who chairs the Akwa Ibom chapter of Artisan Fishermen Association of Nigeria, told the News Agency of Nigeria on Sunday.
NOSDRA head Sir Peter Idabor warns that the leak could be three times as large as Shell admits and may be the country’s worst case of oil pollution in 10 years.
Environment News Service (ENS) 2012