OIL POLITICS: The coming belt of fire
On 20 April the world woke up to what oil spills mean and could
mean. Many reporters and the news media suddenly realised that there were heavy
spills in the Niger Delta, besides the gas flares that toast the skies daily.
However, even as the media lenses are focussed on some of the
atrocious evidence of environmental impunity in our backyard, the angling for
new oil blocks is assuming a stronger beat in the corridors of Aso Rock, as
well as in the board rooms of oil companies and related speculators.
The government needs more revenue; the oil companies need more
profits – it is a crude wedlock of convenience. Meanwhile the people are crying
for mere space for survival. Who listens to them?
Furthermore, as crude oil reserves deplete, oil companies are
moving into more fragile environments: off shore and even eco-reserves. There
are also more concerted moves into dirtier forms of crude – such as bitumen
development.
Bitumen mining produces three to five times more greenhouse
gases than conventional crude oil extraction. With the plans by government to
exploit bitumen from Edo state to Lagos state, we can expect a belt of fire in
this region that will make the Niger Delta conflict a weak prelude.
Bitumen is extracted largely by two methods: open cast mining or
drilling somewhat like crude oil is extracted. The open cast mining system
means excavation of the soil to reach the mineral necessitating the uprooting
of everything in its path. This means that whereas communities have been
polluted in the Niger Delta, in some of the areas where bitumen will be mined,
communities will simply have to be relocated or just dislocated. Where bitumen
is to be extracted by drilling, steam has first to be pumped into the wells to
melt the mineral and thus make it possible to pump to the surface through
pipes. All these add to indicate that bitumen belt will indeed be a belt of
fire.
Even though a monster cap has been fitted over the monster spill
in the Gulf of Mexico, the end of the story has not been reached. The spill has
revealed difficulties in oil field practices even where sophisticated
technologies are involved.
The environmental health concerns of the industry have also been
brought to question. Do the companies in the sector conduct genuine environment
impact studies/analyses for their projects? Do they have adequate oil spill
response plans and mechanisms? To what degree were the health and safety of the
workers considered in the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of
Mexico?
In terms of transparency, we see that the spill volume kept
increasing over time, as the BP was forced to be more realistic with the
figures. It is a shameful display of corporate duplicity and unwillingness to
be open. Check this trend. April 25: 1,000 barrels; April 28: 5,000 barrels;
May 27: 12,000 – 25,000 barrels; Early June: 20,000 – 50,000 barrels per day.
Today it is generally agreed that the spill was spewing over 100,000 barrels a
day right from day one.
Spineless government
officials
In our backyard, ExxonMobil has recorded a string of offshore
spills from their Qua Iboe operations since last May without a whimper from
government about the plight of the local communities and their destroyed
fisheries.
The impacts of the spill in the gulf have made headlines and
cleaning efforts are even televised. What no one knows is the extent to which
these will affect the food chain and ultimately humans. What is not known also
are the cracks that the explosion may have caused on the ocean floor and what
the implications maybe if there is a huge release of gases like methane from
the earth bowels.
The clean up efforts are sustained, but the burning of crude
releases greenhouse gases and the use of a cocktail of chemical dispersants
pose untold dangers.
Photos of the impacts of birds and aquatic lives melt even the
stoniest of hearts. Little wonder government officials have attempted to keep
them from public view. What breaks my heart more than those photos from the
Gulf of Mexico is the nonchalance of our government officials about destroyed
livelihoods and destroyed human lives in the Niger Delta, in the Gulf of
Guinea.
A 2007 report by Nigerian scientists and the World Conservation
Union concludes that “an estimated 1.5million tons of oil has spilled in the
Niger Delta ecosystem over the past 50 years, representing about 50 times the
estimated volume spilled in the Exxon Valdez oil spill.” The Exxon Valdez spill
occurred in 1989. Till date clods of crude oil are still traceable on the
shores that were impacted. And that spill was cleaned 21 years ago.
When will there be a real response in Nigeria?
