Shell Contains Bonga Oil Leak

Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company (SNEPCo), a subsidiary of Shell Nigeria, has confirmed that the oil leak from the Bonga facility some 200 kilometers off the coast of Warri, in the Niger Delta, has been largely dispersed.

A statement by Shell’s Corporate Media Relations Manager, Tony Okonedo, says “the news comes five days after less than 40,000 barrels of oil leaked during a routine operation to transfer oil from Bonga’s floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel to an oil tanker.”

Okonedo noted that since the leak, teams from SNEPCo had worked round the clock with international oil spill experts, using a combination of dispersants and booms to tackle the leaked oil, adding that the company would continue to monitor the area, including using radar satellite, and take appropriate steps to disperse any further persistent oil sheens.

The media manager expressed happiness that “SNEPCo’s robust response and the natural weathering process, helped to bring a swift end to this incident.”

He quoted Shell Nigeria’s, Country Chair, Mutiu Sunmonu, as saying that: containing the leak from Bonga could not have been done without the support of local and national government officials, who enabled Shell teams to mobilise quickly and start to tackle the oil almost immediately.

He also thanked the teams that worked day and night to clean up the oil for their tireless efforts, and the communities along the western Delta shoreline for their support and understanding in recent days.

Sunmonu also spoke on how SNEPCo’s efforts were hampered by third-party oil spilled from another vessel in the area.

Earlier, SNEPCo said it had applied dispersants and deployed strategic skimming operations to further reduce remnants of the oil leak.

Though the company claimed that oil from the Bonga leak did not reach the shore, it said its teams made systemic efforts to ensure shoreline protection in cooperation with the community.

Last Thursday, following the National Assembly’s concerns over the spill, Minister of Environment, Mrs. Hadiza Ibrahim Mailafia, Director General, National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), Sir Peter Idabor, and Deputy Director, Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (MASA), Captain Warredi Enisuoh, had flown offshore to review clean up efforts in response to the Bonga oil leak.

The Tide investigations revealed that SNEPCo had swiftly deployed two aircraft and more than five seaborne vessels to survey and spray dispersants in the affected areas.

Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps Choir, singing at the 2011 Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at the Corps Headquarters in Abuja, recently.