The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria has insisted that it does not make any business sense for any hydrocarbons exploration and production company to deliberately spill crude oil into the environment in a competition-ridden industry.

Instead, Shell would spend all available resources and deploy the most modern technology to capture, process, pump and store for export, the minutest drop of crude oil and natural gas liquids in order to make maximum return on investments.

 Raymond Asukwo, head, pipelines, SPDC-East, who said this during a special media session in Port Harcourt last Thursday, stressed that the clarification became necessary following certain insinuations that oil majors operating in the Niger Delta, including Shell, were in the habit of spilling oil, and not making efforts to clean-up and remediate impacted sites.

Asukwo, noted instead, that the activities of pipeline vandals, crude thieves and operators of illegal refineries, have unleashed more devastating damage to the region’s environment.

He explained that more than 70 per cent of all spill incidents and 98 per cent of total volume of oil spilled yearly are associated with illegal activities of mostly armed gangs, who depend on crude and pipeline theft to eke out a living or deliberately attack oil facilities as a means of expressing their angst over sustained neglect of the region by the government.

Asukwo, particularly fingered Bomu and Soku oil fields in Rivers State as worst areas where criminal gangs have created oil blocks, built manifolds and refineries for themselves using most crude and unsafe means to siphon oil into barges, vessels, tankers, and sometimes, train coaches in exchange for cheap money and arms from ready buyers.

The Shell pipelines expert stated that the activities of operators of illegal refineries, oil bunkerers, and facilities vandals now threaten the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) study team’s efforts in Ogoniland as illegal refineries and oil facilities’ sabotage have become more frequent  features, especially in the Bomu, Bodo, Kpor, K-Dere axis of Gokana.

A 40-minute overfly of Bomu field in Ogoni by The Tide, United States-based Cable News Network (CNN), and Bloomberg News spotted no fewer than 20 islands or blocks harbouring  more  than 200 illegal refineries, numerous illegal connections to crude facilities and deserted oil bunkering points, with resultant smokes billowing at intervals, and the crude thieves scampering for cover on sighting the helicopter.

The team also saw, with utter trepidation, kilometers of stretch of streams and rivers which empty into Bonny river, heavily polluted with crude formations and slicks, while the green vegetation has been completely eliminated in very large, hitherto,  mangrove forests and wetlands.

Asukwo had explained that SPDC has some of the best oil spills management systems in the world, including Pipeline Integrity Management System (PIMS), Pipeline Intelligence Pigging System (PIPS), Oil Spills Response Management System (OSRMS), Oil Spills Contingency Plan (OSCP), as well as Communities And Shell Together (CAST), which manages pipeline stakeholder issues such as surveillance and security.

He said the application of the above plans ensures that weak and faulty pipelines, valves, among others, are detected and replaced to maintain production capacity, saying that only unserious business concern would allow its critical and essential facilities to fail, and consequently loose revenue.

According to him, deferments arising from crude shut-in as a result of operational failure or sabotage on its facilities and huge costs of repairs were business challenges Shell would want to avoid but pointed out that the socio-economic conditions have forced the company to operate under tight situations. 

Nelson Chukwudi