According to a new report released on Tuesday, Nigeria requires $12 billion over a 12-year period to clean up oil spills in the southern Bayelsa state, with Shell and Eni being held primarily responsible for the pollution.
The oil and gas industry, of which Bayelsa is a major producer, is a major source of pollution, conflict, and corruption in the Niger Delta.
Legal challenges to spills in the Niger Delta, which oil companies in Nigeria attribute primarily to pipeline sabotage and vandalism, as well as illegal refining, have been ongoing for some time.
According to a report released in 2019, the Bayelsa State Oil and Environmental Commission began investigating the effects of spills in 2019. They consulted forensic scientists, collected blood samples from residents, and analyzed company data.
According to the commission, toxic pollutants from spills and gas flaring were found in soil, water, air, and blood samples of local residents at levels many times higher than the safe limits.
The oil industry has “failed in strategy, prevention, response, and remediation,” according to the report.
Because it had not seen the final report, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited declined to comment.
“Eni conducts its activities in accordance with the international practices”
Eni blamed oil theft to support black market refineries, illegal exports, and sabotage, but the company promised to clean up the mess.
According to a company spokesperson, the majority of the gas extracted from Eni’s Nigerian unit was used to fuel LNG tanks, which were then transported to nearby power plants.
She also stated that “Eni conducts its activities in accordance with the sector’s international environmental best practices, without regard to country.”
The report discovered that toxins that cause burns, lung damage, and cancer were widespread, and that clean-up efforts led by oil companies were frequently poorly implemented, increasing the risk of further soil and groundwater contamination.
Using a United Nations model developed over a decade ago to estimate the cost of cleaning up spills in Ogoniland in the Niger Delta, the commission concluded that “the clean-up will cost US$12 billion over 12 years” in Bayelsa.
Last year, a group monitoring the project said that the pollution in Ogoniland, which was part of a historic $1 billion clean-up effort involving a United Nations agency, could be worse than previously estimated.
