The Senate yesterday summoned the Managing Director of Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company (SNEPCo) over a major oil spill at its Bonga deepwater facility.
Also invited over the massive spill are the leadership of National Environmental Standards and Regulation Enforcement Agency (NESRA) and the Chairman of National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA).
Senate Committee Chairman on Environment and Ecology, Senator Bukola Saraki, announced this at a news conference in Abuja.
Saraki said the action became necessary to allow Shell and both agencies to explain measures to contain the spill.
He said he was briefed about a major oil spill on the 200,000 barrel-per-day capacity Bonga deepwater facility, approximately 120 kilometres.
The Senator said the spill released over 30,000 barrels of oil off the Nigerian coast.
Saraki said the last time Nigeria had such a high level of spillage was from a Mobil Producing facility in 1997. He noted that the good thing is that from the information available to the committee there was no loss of life.
“We commend all those out there on the field giving their best to ensure the containment of this spill; we commend your efforts so far.”
Saraki said the Senate committee expects NOSDRA to carry out an independent assessment of the spill.
“We have heard from Shell what actions it has taken, such as providing helicopters and vessels deployed to the site.
“To the best of our knowledge, NOSDRA lacks the necessary equipment, such as boats, vessels to navigate the typical terrain where most of these spills took place, helicopters to fly over the affected areas, bums, barriers and most importantly, information command and control centre like other parts of the world to monitor and control these spills and have to now rely almost exclusively on the grace and benevolence of the oil companies, in this case Shell, to provide them logistics, equipment and information command and control centre.”
Shell, he said, “must immediately take necessary steps to halt this oil spill.”
According to him, “there is little moment in reminding Shell of its responsibility to contain the oil spill from getting to the shoreline and to inform all local communities, especially fishermen in that region and to be prepared to pay for any damage the spill might have or will cause to Nigerians living within the area of impact or on their livelihood.”
He assured Nigerians that members of the Senate Committee on Environment and Ecology are closely monitoring the situation as it unfolds.
He said: “We will make sure that we do all within our powers to ensure that international practices that guide all oil companies in this type of situation are also followed here in Nigeria , despite the clear handicap of the supervising agency.
“The committee urges all Nigerians to be vigilant and provide it with useful information as it tracks this incident so that collectively we can lessen the burden of containment and ensure a speedy remedy.”
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Senate summons Shell MD, others over 30,000 barrels oil spill