BP’s Oily Mess: Welcome to the Unites States of Nigeria

[Jefferson23]

Disturbing as hell, "generations in some areas have mainly experienced the great outdoors as an oily mess."

June 3, 7:06 AM, 2010

By Ken Silverstein

I received an email from a reader this morning that said, “A friend from Nigeria now living in the U.S….said BP has made such a mess in Nigeria that generations in some area have mainly experienced the great outdoors as an oily mess. He said BP would consider its leak off of the southern coast of the U.S. very minor by Nigeria-spill standards.”



Based on this article in The Guardian, that assessment seems spot on.

More oil is spilled from the delta’s network of terminals, pipes, pumping stations and oil platforms every year than has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico, the site of a major ecological catastrophe caused by oil that has poured from a leak triggered by the explosion that wrecked BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig last month.

That disaster, which claimed the lives of 11 rig workers, has made headlines round the world. By contrast, little information has emerged about the damage inflicted on the Niger delta. Yet the destruction there provides us with a far more accurate picture of the price we have to pay for drilling oil today.

On 1 May this year a ruptured ExxonMobil pipeline in the state of Akwa Ibom spilled more than a million gallons into the delta over seven days before the leak was stopped. Local people demonstrated against the company but say they were attacked by security guards. Community leaders are now demanding $1bn in compensation for the illness and loss of livelihood they suffered. Few expect they will succeed. In the meantime, thick balls of tar are being washed up along the coast.


http://www.harpers.org/archive/2010/06/hbc-90007158

[Statistical]

1. Funny the author got the company wrong. Shell is the major player in Nigeria

Shell controls over half the oil in Nigeria. The rest is split up between the usual suspects (Chevron, Exxon, AGIP, Total).

They have indeed utterly destroyed the Nigerian Delta. If we had a major spill every single week for a couple decades then Gulf might be close to the environmental damage in Nigeria.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_industry_in_Nigeria#Joint_Venture_companies

BP isn't even a minor player in Nigeria.

[Jefferson23]

4. You're right and the link to the Guardian piece makes that clear

about Shell. I guess Ken was mistaken, thanks for pointing that out.

[Statistical]

5. No prob.

What shell has done in Nigeria is off the charts horrible.

Not just the environmental damage but the crippling poverty, corruption, cronyism, support of radical militias to enforce the "peace" (peace meaning oil keeps flowing no matter the body count).

[cdsilv]

6. Supposedly the bitterly poor locals often 'tap' the gasoline pipelines for fuel, exacerbating...

..the situation.

[entanglement]

2. So true.

[tblue]

3. Thank you.

Whenever I read about what multinational corporations are doing in the Amazon or other struggling nations, I think, "Same thing will happen to us. And when that happens, it's over." It DOES matter what happens in other parts of the world. Look at them, and you see our future. We have to fight for them, too.

Thanks for this post. It is wrong to look at this incident in the Gulf in isolation.

[Jefferson23]

7. True, it's like a death we are all watching together. n/t