By Obiabin Onukwugha
An advocacy body, Youths and Environmental Advocacy Centre (YEAC-Nigeria) has reported an oil spill in Kpean community, Khana local government area of Rivers State.
The spill was reported on Wednesday, August 6, through its One Million Youth Volunteers Network and Crude Oil Spill Alert System (COSAS).
The spill, according to a statement by YEAC-NIGERIA executive director, Dr. Fyneface Dumaneme, is alleged to have resulted from equipment failure on a wellhead from OML11. The statement regretted that the oil spill is coming amid ongoing environment clean-up of previous crude oil spills in Ogoniland.
It said, “Although the specific wellhead where the spill occurred from cannot be independently confirmed by the Advocacy Centre as at the time of this statement, two paramount rulers in the area provided different accounts: one indicated it occurred on Oil Well 2, while the other stated that it happened on Oil Well 4 in the OML 11 oil field with 16 oil wells.
“These wells are among those abandoned since 1993 by Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) following their departure from Ogoniland after being declared persona non grata by the Ogoni people,” YEAC-NIGERIA said.
The statement mentioned that the YEAC-Nigeria’s volunteers in the area reported that they have been hearing pressure sounds from the wellhead for several days before the spillage, “which suggests that the crude oil was struggling to emerge from the sealed Christmas Tree (Oil Well Head) despite the ‘killing’ of oil wells in the area by SPDC during a maintenance operation around 2011 that lasted for weeks”, the body further said.
The body emphasised that the spill complicates the ongoing cleanup efforts by the HYPREP and called for immediate joint investigation visit from the relevant agencies to ascertain the cause of the spill and take urgent remediation steps.
“This recent spill complicates ongoing clean-up efforts by the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP), especially with ongoing federal government controversial oil production resumption discussions in Ogoniland.
“YEAC-Nigeria calls on the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) to conduct a joint investigation visit (JIV) on the spill site to determine the actual cause of the spill,” the body stated.
