In the wake of the first report cataloging the widespread oil spill damage in the Niger Delta reports of a new spill emerge.

Fresh oil spill seen near Shell pipeline in Nigeria’s restive southern oil delta

By Associated Press, Published: August 21
Reposted from The Washington Post

LAGOS, Nigeria — Community leaders in Nigeria’s oil-rich southern delta say a new oil spill has been seen near a Royal Dutch Shell PLC pipeline where a fire broke out earlier this week.

The oil sheen could be seen Sunday near the Okordia Rumuekepe trunkline in Bayelsa state, which is operated by Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary. The same trunkline saw a fire break out Friday.

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image source:  guardian.co.uk

by Ben Amunwa

Reposted from Platform, August 17, 2011

Today, the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) warned that Nigeria stands to lose billions of dollars in oil revenue over the coming years if the new oil law, the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) is passed unamended.

“NEITI does not see the rationale for passing a bill that is designed to reduce government revenue from petroleum operations by a minimum of $3 billion annually through inappropriate and unfavourable adjustments to the fiscal provisions,” the agency said in a statement.

“Sadly, the House of Representatives Report establishes fiscal terms with a government share of oil revenues below internationally competitive levels and with a structure that will result in a rapid erosion of government petroleum revenues during the next 5 years.”

I should point out that Nigeria has lost billions to successive corrupt regimes. But that’s another blog post entirely.

Here’s some background on the PIB.

The PIB, presented to the National Assembly in 2008, is Nigeria’s attempt to re-structure its embattled oil industry, primarily to resolve long-standing funding issues and incorporate NNPC, the national oil company. However, the Bill has been subject to substantial mission creep, and could eventually affect a wide range of issues from fiscal terms, gas flaring to host community rights.

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Read the joint position paper on the PIB from Social Action, ERA, and CISLAC and see the latest version of the PIB

Oil spills destroyed my village in Nigeria and decades of environmental and social injustice are still to be addressed

by Patrick Naagbanton, Thursday 4 August 2011
Reposted from  guardian.co.uk

Shell’s admission of liability for two massive oil spills in 2008-09 in my village of Bodo in the Niger Delta is a step forward in the long struggle for corporate accountability. An impoverished village that yesterday lay in ruins has today felt a welcome glimmer of hope and justice.

We are happy with the news that Shell could be forced to clean up the environmental devastation it has caused and to pay more than $400m in compensation. But our jubilation is overshadowed by more than five decades of environmental and social injustice yet to be addressed.

Bodo village is a fishing community in the minority Ogoni region of the Niger Delta. Shell was forced out of Ogoni in 1993, following mass protests led by writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was executed on 10 November 1995 alongside eight other campaigners. Shell’s vast network of oil wells, pipelines, flow-stations and gas flares remained in Ogoni and are an everyday reminder of what we have suffered.

Many of Shell’s rusty, leaky pipelines date back to the 1970s and have been poorly maintained ever since (see pages 31-36 and 43 of Friends of the Earth Netherlands report). It was equipment failure that caused Shell’s high-pressure Trans-Niger pipeline to rupture on 28 August 2008, gushing an estimated 2,000 barrels of oil per day into Bodo for weeks. The land and water was covered in thick layers of crude. Shell was also responsible for a second spill from the same pipeline on 2 February 2009.

Oil spills have effectively destroyed my community. Local farmers and fishers were forced to abandon their traditional ways of life. Bodo Creek is, ecologically speaking, dead. The fish that were not killed by the heavy pollution now reek of petroleum and cannot sustain a village population of 69,000 people. Shell has violated our basic human rights to food, water and livelihood. The compensation Shell offered us – £3,500 plus bags of rice and sugar – was insulting and wholly inadequate.

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Image: Ogoni Spill-Amensty International photos

UNEP Ogoniland Oil Assessment Reveals Extent of Environmental Contamination and Threats to Human Health

Reposted from United Nations Environment Programme
Ogoniland, Nigeria

Read full UNEP Environmental Assessment of Ogoniland

Abuja, 4 August 2011 – The environmental restoration of Ogoniland could prove to be the world’s most wide-ranging and long term oil clean-up exercise ever undertaken if contaminated drinking water, land, creeks and important ecosystems such as mangroves are to be brought back to full, productive health.

A major new independent scientific assessment, carried out by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), shows that pollution from over 50 years of oil operations in the region has penetrated further and deeper than many may have supposed.

The assessment has been unprecedented. Over a 14-month period, the UNEP team examined more than 200 locations, surveyed 122 kilometres of pipeline rights of way, reviewed more than 5,000 medical records and engaged over 23,000 people at local community meetings.

Detailed soil and groundwater contamination investigations were conducted at 69 sites, which ranged in size from 1,300 square metres (Barabeedom-K.dere, Gokana local government area (LGA) to 79 hectares (Ajeokpori-Akpajo, Eleme LGA).

Altogether more than 4,000 samples were analyzed, including water taken from 142 groundwater monitoring wells drilled specifically for the study and soil extracted from 780 boreholes…

…Next Steps Recommendations

Through a combination of approaches, individual contaminated land areas in Ogoniland can be cleaned up within five years, while the restoration of heavily-impacted mangrove stands and swamplands will take up to 30 years.

However, according to the report, all sources of ongoing contamination must be brought to an end before the clean-up of the creeks, sediments and mangroves can begin.

The report recommends establishing three new institutions in Nigeria to support a comprehensive environmental restoration exercise.

A proposed Ogoniland Environmental Restoration Authority would oversee implementation of the study’s recommendations and should be set up during a Transition Phase which UNEP suggests should begin as soon as possible.

The Authority’s activities should be funded by an Environmental Restoration Fund for Ogoniland, to be set up with an initial capital injection of US$1 billion contributed by the oil industry and the government, to cover the first five years of the clean-up project.

A recommended Integrated Contaminated Soil Management Centre, to be built in Ogoniland and supported by potentially hundreds of mini treatment centres, would treat contaminated soil and provide hundreds of job opportunities.

The report also recommends creating a Centre of Excellence in Environmental Restoration in Ogoniland to promote learning and benefit other communities impacted by oil contamination in the Niger Delta and elsewhere in the world.

Reforms of environmental government regulation, monitoring and enforcement, and improved practices by the oil industry are also recommended in the report.

Full article

image: UNEP Environmental Assessment of Ogoniland

Public meetings staged throughout Ogoniland during each phase of the study helped to build understanding of UNEP’s project and to foster community participation,

Shell accepts liability for two oil spills in Nigeria

By John Vidal

Wednesday 3 August 2011

Reposted from guardian.co.uk

Oil giant faces a bill of hundreds of millions of dollars following class action suit brought on behalf of communities in Bodo, Ogoniland

The impact of an oil spill near Ikarama in the Niger delta. Photograph: Amnesty International UK

Shell faces a bill of hundreds of millions of dollars after accepting full liability for two massive oil spills that devastated a Nigerian community of 69,000 people and may take at least 20 years to clean up.

Experts who studied video footage of the spills at Bodo in Ogoniland say they could together be as large as the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska, when 10m gallons of oil destroyed the remote coastline.

Until now, Shell has claimed that less than 40,000 gallons were spilt in Nigeria.

Papers seen by the Guardian show that following a class action suit in London over the past four months, the company has accepted responsibility for the 2008 double rupture of the Bodo-Bonny trans-Niger pipeline that pumps 120,000 barrels of oil a day though the community.

Ogoniland is a small region of the Niger delta which threw out Shell in 1994 for its pollution but then saw eight of its leaders, including the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa, executed by the government.

The crude oil that gushed unchecked from the two Bodo spills, which occurred within months of each other, in 2008 has clearly devastated the 20 sq km network of creeks and inlets on which Bodo and as many as 30 other smaller settlements depend for food, water and fuel.

No attempt has been made to clean up the oil, which has collected on the creek sides, washes in and out on the tides and has seeped deep into the water table and farmland.

According to the communities in Bodo, in two years the company has only offered £3,500 together with 50 bags of rice, 50 bags of beans and a few cartons of sugar, tomatoes and groundnut oil. The offers were rejected as “insulting, provocative and beggarly” by the chiefs of Bodo, but later accepted on legal advice.

Shell’s acceptance of full liability for the spills follows a class action suit bought on behalf of communities by London law firm Leigh Day and Co, which represented the Ivory Coast community that suffered health damage following the dumping of toxic waste by a ship leased to multinational oil company Trafigura in 2006.

Many other impoverished communities in the delta are now expected to seek damages for oil pollution against Shell in the British courts. On average, there are three oil spills a day by Shell and other companies working in the delta. Shell consistently blames the spills on local youths who, they argue, sabotage their network of pipelines.

“The news that Shell has accepted liability in Britain will be greeted with joy in the delta. The British courts may now be inundated with legitimate complaints,” said Patrick Naagbartonm, coordinator for the Centre of Environment and Human Rights in Port Harcourt.

Full article

Four Communities: Imiringi, Elebele, Otuasega and Oruma stage peaceful protest against Shell, Friday, 08 July 2011

Reposted from Environmental Rights Action (Friends of the Earth Nigeria)

INTRODUCTION:

Four communities where Shell Petroleum Development Company [SPDC] operates in recently issued a 14 days ultimatum to the company, demanding for implementation of agreement reached with the communities in 1999. The communities include: Oruma, Otuasega, Elebele and Imiringi; all Ogbia speaking Ijaw communities in Ogbia Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, few kilometres to President Goodluck Jonathan’s community, Otueke.

Following the ultimatum to Shell, leaders of the community had appeared before the Joint Military Task Force [JTF] at the expiration of the time with a view to settle the matter amicably. Unfortunately, Shell could not convince the aggrieved communities that are demanding that the company honour the agreement it reached with them in 1999, and they decided to stage a peaceful protest to the heavily guarded Shell facility, the Kolo Creek Logistic Base.

ERA’s field monitor witnessed the protest that took place on the 7th of July 2011 and some of the protesters spoke with him.

TESTIMONIES:

We are here for a peaceful protest but if the JTF handles this matter in a violent way we shall only retreat and return in full force. Then it will be too bad for Shell because Shell has cheated us for too long. The Kolo Creek communities have been known to be very peaceful but if the soldiers and Shell take undue advantage of our peaceful disposition today to intimidate us, we shall not take it. If we hear any gun shot or if any of our members is injured here today by the soldiers, the rest of the state and the country will hear our action. All we are demanding for is that Shell should respect the agreement it reached long ago with our people; these four communities. They agreed to extend electricity to our communities but they are not doing so; while benefiting heavily from our oil wells. This is not a fresh demand, it is an agreement reached with us that we are trying to enforce.  — Amakiri Joseph, Vice-Chairman of the Community Development Committee [CDC] of Oruma

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