Pipeline-fire
From: Arodiegwu Eziukwu, Yenogoa
Fire on Sunday gutted an oil spill site within an oil field operated by Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) at Ayambele and Kalaba communities in Yenagoa Local Government of Bayelsa.
The spill site currently being remediated by SPDC was polluted by an oil spill from Shell’s Okordia Manifold at Ikarama community in June.
A Joint Investigation report on the June 12 spill obtained from SPDC’s website attributed the discharge of 629 barrels of crude into the environment to vandalism.
The report stated that the spill impacted a total area of 3.4 hectares covering swamps, farm and built up areas beyond SPDC’s right of way.
Mr Monibo Joel, Youth President of Ayambele community told our Correspondent that the crude oil from the Okordia manifold spread into Kalaba and Ayambele swamps.
Joel said that residents of the communities woke up to see the strange fire on Sunday which is still burning off the crude deposits on the land and swamps.
He said that the clean up of the June spill incident was currently underway, a development that heightened suspicion that the clean up contractors may have ignited the fire to expedite the clean up.
When contacted Mr Precious Okoloba, Media Relations Manager of SPDC said on Sunday that the oil firm was yet to get a report on the fire incident.
Okolobo however pledged to investigate the report before making comments.
Reacting to the fire incident Mr Alagoa Morris, an Environmentalist and Head of Field Operations at Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria condemned the act of burning out spilled crude.
“The Environmental Rights Action has condemned the burning of oil spill impacted sites, it is very crude and unacceptable method of clean-up used by oil companies and their clean-up contractors.
“ We condemn this burning approach because it further degrades the environment, the Ayambele/Kalaba environment is still raging with the fire suspected to be lit by agents of the contractor cleaning the spill,” Morris said.
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