Warri (WorldStage Newsonline)-- Shell Nigeria Exploration Petroleum Company (SNEPCO) on Thursday faulted the claims of several communities in the Niger Delta that the spill from Bonga Field had devastated their communities and destroyed their economic activities.
A statement form Shell’s Media officer, Joseph Obari said Shell responded on time to halt the leakage of the spill to other parts of the Niger Delta against claims by some communities that Bonga spill has disrupted their economic lives.
“It is important to understand that the Bonga FPSO is 120km offshore, about one hour by a helicopter flight from Warri. There are no communities near the facility. As part of our emergency response planning, we envisage the most likely emergency response scenarios and plan accordingly,” the statement said.
“To ensure no oil from the Bonga leak reached the beach, we leveraged assets from around Shell’s global portfolio. We also worked with and benefited from the assistance of our industry partners. Our main goal was to ensure the oil fully dispersed and that none of it reached the shore. We were successful.
“We believe the oil on the beach is not from Bonga. We made significant progress every day to disperse the oil that leaked from Bonga We were disappointed to see images of a third party spill which appeared to be from a vessel, in the middle of an area that we had previously cleaned up.
“We are confident that any oil of that age, color and consistency that hits the beach is not ours. We are taking samples as part of the joint investigation which will be reviewed to provide evidence that this is not Bonga oil on the beach. We advise all parties to wait for the outcome of the investigation of the oil sample which will be handled by a reputable lab overseas.
“What made the difference to the management of the spill was the speed of response. On noticing an oil sheen on the surface of the water around the Bonga FPSO on December 20th, 2011, we shut down the export lines thereby stopping the flow of oil; informed local government/regulatory authorities and mobilised emergency operations crews.
“We set up a Country Crisis Team and Emergency Response centres in Lagos and Warri who were in 24hr connection with a support team at our Group offices in The Hague. We also got the support of many third parties including Clean Nigeria Associate (National tier-2 response agency), other IOCs – ExxonMobil, NOAC and Govt Agencies – DPR, NOSDRA. UK-based Oil Spill Response flew in with a Hercules aircraft, assisted by another plan from Ghana, which sprayed dispersants on the oil along with five seaborne vessels. In addition, we deployed booms to stop the spread of the oil and skimmers to recover spilled oil.
“The oil was largely dispersed by Sunday, December 25, 2011 due to natural processes (dispersion, spreading and evaporation) and the integrated efforts of SNEPCo, government and our industry partners. Initial modelling suggested ~ 50% to total spill was gone via natural processes by December 22, 2011.
“Oil disperses naturally through evaporation and bio-degradation. Dispersants speed up natural dispersion. Main benefits are that they remove concentrated oil from water surface and disperse oil into the water column where it naturally degrades. The magic you refer to is the combination of all these efforts and timely support from Government agencies including Customs and Immigration. The Minister of Environment acknowledged these efforts when she visited Bonga.”
Story by James Nnadi (info@worldstagegroup.com)
