Nigeria Content Online

Officials of the
Anglo-Dutch oil and gas major, Shell are at loggerheads with local
fishermen at Bonny Island, home of the multibillion naira Nigeria
Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Plant, over an alleged oil spill in Oloma
community.

Company officials
on the ground in Bonny, who did not want their names in print, are
blaming the spill on third party interference. But the locals blame the
incident on ‘internal conspiracy.’ The Seafood Dealers and Farmers in
Niger Delta (OFSDF/ND), an association of fishermen, told journalists
on Thursday that they were bracing for a showdown with Shell over the
spill, which they say the oil company must take responsibility for.

Shell’s wellhead
12 is located in Oloma, and the facility is suspected to be rusty.
Before now, the company has been making efforts to upgrade the facility.

Spokesperson for
the group, Richard Abbey, who is also chairman of its board of
trustees, said news of the spill came to the Oloma community through
fishermen who were fishing within the well 12 waters.

“Eye-witnesses
informed us that the Shell wellhead had spewed oil into our sea and
fish ponds and as such, contaminating the water and aquatic life in the
process,” he said.

“The matter was
reported to the Rivers state Ministry of Environment, which swiftly
rushed down and was joined by Shell officials and representatives of
Oloma community in a Joint investigation team (JIV) to ascertain the
cause of the robust spill. It was in the cause of investigation that we
gathered that about 10,000 barrels of spill has devastated the area.”
Mr Abbey said the way the pipe was broken showed it was an act carried
out by experts.

“We found out that
vandals harvested the pipe to gain access to the crude, more surprising
was that the wellhead was professionally shut down to enable them
execute the crime and that has left us bewildered,” he said. “We know
that only Shell staff have what it takes professionally to shut down
the well head. We also know that security operatives and surveillance
contractors are 24 hours on ground to secure the pipelines, hence our
insistence that it is an internal conspiracy by Shell.” The oil company
however insisted that “the sabotage is community based.” That tends to
foreclose any form of compensation to the community.

But Mr Abbey said
there is need for Shell to put together another team to ascertain how
the wellhead was shut down. He said it was on record that neither Oloma
community nor any other in Bonny has ever been involved in
vandalization of Shell facilities.

“Since the
occurrence of the said spillage, our fishermen in Bonny River have been
suffering untold hardship, making ends meet have been a problem and
this is endangering the lives of our family members and dependants’’,
he said.