Key non-governmental organisations in Nigeria have given a clear backing to the strategy adopted by Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company (SNEPCo) in the clean-up of the December 20, 2011 oil spill on its Bonga Floating, Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) facility offshore Niger Delta.

Bonga had spilled about 40,000 barrels of oil into the deep-water aquifers some 200 kilometres offshore Warri,  Delta State,  following an unexpected leak from a flexible export line linking the FPSO vessel to the tanker, loading crude from the facility.

Speaking shortly after an assessment tour of the facility and the deep-water environment, last Thursday in Port Harcourt, President, Nigeria Conservation Foundation, Prof Emmanuel Obot, confirmed that Shell’s claim of effectively deploying dispersants to contain the crude spilled into the water body was true, and affirmed that the spill has been dispersed.

Obot, who is also the chief executive of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Nature Resources (IUCN) in Nigeria, said although the spill has been dispersed, it was difficult at this time to determine the extent of damage to biodiversity because of the swift response to the clean-up exercise and the short stay of the spill on the water body.

The NCF chief executive officer commended Shell for rising up to the occasion by deploying all necessary equipment and mobilising expert manpower from across the globe to clamp the leak, and isolate the tanker.

While cautioning Shell to guard against any reoccurrence in the near future in order not to dampen hope in the dependence and reliability of the abundant hydrocarbon resources in the deep-water area, Obot urged operators in the deep-water horizon, especially Shell to ensure that products that meet international standards are used in their operation.

Short of indicting Shell for allowing the use of substandard products in the crude loading process offshore, the IUCN representative cautioned that equipment failure should never be tolerated as such could result in massive destruction of biodiversity, huge revenue loss, as well as dangerous exposure of workers to unwanted death and or injury.

Other experts with specialty on environmental sustainability, who participated in the tour, are Dr Tony Chovwen of Living Earth Foundation, Gogo Ubulom of Pro Natura International Nigeria, a representative of CLEAN Nigeria Associates and two representatives of Coalition of Civil Society Organisations (CCSOs) in the Niger Delta region with interest on environmental issues management.

With headquarters in Gland, Switzerland, the IUCN was founded in October, 1948, as an international organisation dedicated to finding “pragmatic solutions to our most pressing environment and development challenges.”

It supports scientific research, manages field projects all over the world and brings governments, non-government organisations, United Nations agencies, companies and local communities together to develop and implement policy, laws and best practice.

IUCN is the world’s oldest and largest global environmental network – a democratic membership union with more than 1,000 government and NGO member organisations, and almost 11,000 volunteer scientists in more than 160 countries, and more than 1,000 professional staff in 60 offices and hundreds of partners in public, NGO and private sectors around the world.

IUCN’s stated vision is to create “a just world that values and conserves nature” while its mission is to “influence, encourage and assist societies throughout the world to conserve the integrity and biodiversity of nature and to ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically sustainable.”