Seven people have died after a pipeline carrying petrol exploded in Lagos State, Nigeria, on Thursday 5 December 2019. The explosion happened at Idowu Egba to the west of the city of Lagos, and is thought to have been caused by thieves boring into the pipeline to steal petrol, which also released petrol fumes into the local atmosphere, fumes which were ignited when a cleric at a nearby church lit a candle. The dead are thought to include five members of the gang that was stealing the petrol, the clergyman, and one of his parishioners. A second churchgoer is being treated in hospital with 70% burns.
Investigators at the scene of a pipeline explosion in Lagos State, Nigeria, this week. Gidipoint.
Although Nigeria is a major exporter of crude oil, it is largely reliant on
imported petroleum for its fuel needs, placing the country at a
significant economic disadvantage. The combination of fuel poverty and
pipelines criss-crossing the countryside has led to a thriving black
market in stolen fuel, obtained at great risk from pipelines, either as
processed petroleum or as crude oil which is then refined using
home-made fractionation equipment, a process known as 'oil bunkering'. This raiding of oil
pipelines is blamed by oil companies for the widespread pollution in the
Niger Delta, though environmental and human rights groups claim that
this is used as an excuse to cover poor maintenance practises, and that
companies should be held responsible for the security of their pipelines
anyway.
However
the sale of black-market fuel provides a means of gaining hard cash in
an area that has seen little benefit from the presence of the oil
companies, and where the oil is often seen as a resource that should
belong to the local people, not foreign oil companies or the (fairly
remote) government of Nigeria. The environmental problems caused by both
legal and illegal oil operations in the Delta strongly impact upon the
local economy, which is based upon small scale farming and fishing,
leaving many people with no legitimate source of income, which combined
with a rapidly growing population and therefore increased demand for
food, makes the black market oil industry more attractive than it might
otherwise seem.
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