Niger Delta: Shell to clean up 268 oil spill sites
From Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja, 06.14.2010
Monday, June 14, 2010

Minister of Environment John Odey has asked Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) to ensure that its plan to carry out the clean-up of some 268 sites in the Niger Delta conforms with the Federal Government's guidelines on environmental standards.

http://odili.net/news/source/2010/jun/14/207.html


The minister advised the company to conduct the clean-up exercise in collaboration with the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), the regulatory agency that ensures oil companies maintain environmental standards.

He made these comments while receiving the Managing Director of Shell Mutiu Sumonu over the weekend.

"We acknowledge your recent reaction to government's quest for remediation plan for all oil impacted sites; we are aware of your plan to remediate 268 sites and particularly the earmark for clean-up of 185 sites for next year 2011.

"I will charge NOSDRA to do this in collaboration with you and urge that we build capacities by involving rural communities so that we can transfer skills,” he stated.

Odey said the visit of the Shell MD would improve communication and information sharing with officials of the ministry. It will also go a long way to improve the lives of the people in the oil communities, he added.

According to him, Shell has made reasonable progress in respect of environmental impact assessment. He urged the company to try as much as possible to work together with the government to collectively control oil spill and act promptly when it occurs.

The minister stressed the importance of the meeting, saying there should be a joint inspection of oil-impacted sites. Effort should also be made towards building trust and confidence between the communities and the oil companies, he said.

Odey advised Shell to ensure that it puts in place an oil spill contingency plan. Such a plan should carry NORSDA along in all its activities, he said. In his response, Sumonu pointed out that oil companies currently operating in the country are in a position to respond quickly to any spill.

He argued that the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico cannot not be compared to that of Nigeria.

"The kind of situation we have in the Gulf of Mexico, we don't have that in ten years in Nigeria. All the oil companies in Nigeria will work together to ensure we respond to spill.

"There is no spill that happened that we (Shell) have not handled within 24 to 48 hours. It is a fallacy for some people to compare the spill in Gulf of Mexico to what happens here", he said.

About time!

So it takes the BP oil spill that is happening in the Gulf of Mexico to finally open up the eyes of Nigerian politicians that environmental degradation is a huge problem in the Niger Delta?

Wonders never amaze me. So cleaning up oil spills is en vogue now? Naija politicians are daft!

mumu politicians

The Oba of Benin should put a curse on our politicians who are the real criminals and pened robbers of our country. Instead of wasteing innocent cows and chickens to punish criminals who are victims of circumstance.

WHAT ABOUT THE $34 Billion like the one USA don fine BP for 54 days of oil spillage. Clean up ke! nonsense. They should pay up.

dey shuld start wrk nw

Well it pains me so dearly because i come not just from the Niger Delta region,but from core oil producing communities(note there is a big difference).So i have witnessed 1st hand spills,it"s impacts & degeneration of my community"s environment.
Let us be very factual with ourselves.This can"t happen in the main tribes of this country & people will look the other way.Sorry if i sound tribalistic here but it is the truth.
There is so much poverty that people result to vandalism.When this is done there is uproar in Niger Delta,but illegal mining of solid minerals is done with reckless abadon North & south west of Nigeria & everyone turns the blind eye.Example is the illegal minning done in Zamfara that is causing deaths of children through lead poisioning.Solid policies to develop these solid minerals are ignored(because some of their elites benefit)
The only solution is resource control.Nigeria will be better for it because everybody will wake up to their reponsibility & develop their own resources.Chikenaa

thank God Obama don open our eyes to how to handle those guys,

polo7:

Well it pains me so dearly because i come not just from the Niger Delta region,but from core oil producing communities(note there is a big difference).So i have witnessed 1st hand spills,it"s impacts & degeneration of my community"s environment.
Let us be very factual with ourselves.This can"t happen in the main tribes of this country & people will look the other way.Sorry if i sound tribalistic here but it is the truth.
There is so much poverty that people result to vandalism.When this is done there is uproar in Niger Delta,but illegal mining of solid minerals is done with reckless abadon North & south west of Nigeria & everyone turns the blind eye.Example is the illegal minning done in Zamfara that is causing deaths of children through lead poisioning.Solid policies to develop these solid minerals are ignored(because some of their elites benefit)
The only solution is resource control.Nigeria will be better for it because everybody will wake up to their reponsibility & develop their own resources.Chikenaa

If the Nigerian government cares, this is the exact time to launch an international campaign against oil spill and with the problem in the US gulf, all other companies involved will clean up their act before they end up in CNN like BP.

The Key word in the Article Started is 'ensure' .

The Former Administration already set up the Niger Delta Ministry, to deal with development and wreakage caused by oil spills.

The spill in in the gulf coast(USA) off american shores may highlight huge factors the damage oilspills cause due to the country and the spills location.


Thats my opinion


Amhatu

wazobia-ng:

WHAT ABOUT THE $34 Billion like the one USA don fine BP for 54 days of oil spillage. Clean up ke! nonsense. They should pay up.

$34 with 9 zeroes behind it?! Isn't that close to the entire GDP of Lagos? Or about 10% of Nigeria's entire GDP? Oil is earth's cigarette; slowly killing it!

Action speaks louder dan flimpsy press conferences

hilli666:

The Oba of Benin should put a curse on our politicians who are the real criminals and pened robbers of our country. Instead of wasteing innocent cows and chickens to punish criminals who are victims of circumstance.

If you have nothing better to say, just STFU. So kidnappers are now 'victims of circumstance'? I'm from Edo State and i know how bad the situation is now, with people being dragged and kidnapped from schools, markets and churches. And unlike other places in Nigeria, there's at least a 15% chance that the victim ends up dead even after the ransome is paid.
I loathe people like you that try to drum up sympathy for monsters.

meanwhile who sanctions mend for all the oil from those exploded pipelines

greenpeace and cnn , over to you

The oil compainies will give somebody money again and
they will just pretend to be doing something for 2 days and its back to
the status quo.

The oil spillage has been occuring in the ND  since the '60's and arable farm lands have
long been decimated and the eye-service boffoons are making empty talks in abuja.
Simply because oil spillage around the world will soon be in the lime-light when BP starts to pay up
for compesations and lawsuits.
The oil companies have forseen that and now want to be seen by the int'l community to care before
they are exposed for what they are.

Nigeria is in a world of its own.
The pretentiousness and level of corruption there is totally DEMONIC.

So we have a minister for environment all along

tlops:

thank God Obama don open our eyes to how to handle those guys,

thank God we have ND elders and old men parading as youth leaders who will happily collect money to renovate their kingdom, marry new wife or buy that mansion in Abuja far away from their region- just who is fooling who
Maybe the minister, senate chairman for oil and gas, and NNPC head are from the northern part of the country that is why they are looking the other way

It may have something to do with the fact that the President of Nigeria is now from the Niger Delta region, as well as the minister for Energy? People who are from the Niger delta are now in positions of power pertaining to the sector and they obviously want to put their foot down and rightly so. Its a good thing, and I dont think its just because of what has happened in America.

londoner:

It may have something to do with the fact that the President of Nigeria is now from the Niger Delta region, as well as the minister for Energy? People who are from the Niger delta are now in positions of power pertaining to the sector and they obviously want to put their foot down and rightly so. Its a good thing, and I dont think its just because of what has happened in America.

O really? the Governors, Senate Chair, House of chairing oil and gas are all from this area? the Niger Delta ministry is all made of Niger deltans, former NNPC heads are from there. if they wait to become president/minister before they can make the government do anything then they even more useless than their counterparts across the river niger

Infact, the Gulf Oil Spill (off USA coast) is not a oil spill but a ruptured  sea floor caused  by BP. The oil and other  Chemicals are gushing  out at almost unknown levels.

This situation dwarfs any amount of spills in Delta State Nigeria or any other prevoius spill in known history. Infact the oil in the gulf of mexico, from ruptured sea floor covers a area larger than Delta State Nigeria ( You can google or Altavista search and see for yourself).


This is a world catastrophe ! The entire area is at risk of a dead zone for sea life,so sad!


Amhatu

hilli666:

The Oba of Benin should put a curse on our politicians who are the real criminals and pened robbers of our country. Instead of wasteing innocent cows and chickens to punish criminals who are victims of circumstance.

well said

hilli666:

The Oba of Benin should put a curse on our politicians who are the real criminals and pened robbers of our country. Instead of wasteing innocent cows and chickens to punish criminals who are victims of circumstance.

lol

Aloy+Emeka:

If the Nigerian government cares, this is the exact time to launch an international campaign against oil spill and with the problem in the US gulf, all other companies involved will clean up their act before they end up in CNN like BP.

What do you mean when you say this is exact time to launch an international campaign against oil spill? America's issue will be taken care of in a couple of months and disappear from the front pages soon, but I doubt, by the way we still see it, that the Nigerian case will be over in the next couple of years.
This is not the first oil spill ever and will certainly not be the last, that is why it is the duty of Government, not the oil companies, to ensure that the interest of the nation is put ahead of that of the oil companies.
Gulf Coast governors and mayors have been working overtime to keep the focus of the white house on this issue. I find it amazing how most comments comparing the Nigerian situation with that in America conveniently ignore this very important detail. The $20 billion figure we heard of this week was not manufactured but a bulk number from the local governments in the area sent to the white house in this case.
We need to organize ourselves at the local level before we start rushing off to international for any reason. Only a couple of months ago the BBC aired a documentary on the situation in the ND area. Ever wonder why that documentary did not get as much attention as the "Welcome to Lagos" documentary?
We need to start thinking big time!