A militant group claims to have blown up an oil pipline in the Niger Delta on Monday 11 July 2016. The Niger Delta Avengers claim to have dynamited a pipeline during an attack on the ExxonMobile-operated Qua Iboe Terminal in Akwa Ibom State, which handles about 300 000 barrels of oil from offshore rigs in the Bight of Biafra every day. However Exxon have denied any knowledge of the attack, while sources within the Nigerian security services have reported dynamite being thrown at the terminal from boats but no actual damage.
Qua Iboe village, Akwa Ibom State. Countrybox.
Local communities have been engaged in an ongoing dispute with Exxon-Mobile over the Qua Iboe Terminal since 13 August 2012, when a major spill at the site covered about 35 km on
shoreline, which ExxonMobil reportedly originally denied and then
promised to clean up and pay compensation to local communities.
Community leaders in the area have complained that only a minimal
effort was made to deal with the spill, and no compensation was ever
paid. A number of smaller spills have been reported since this initial
incident, but local communities report having received no compensation
from ExxonMobil.
The approximate location of the Qua Iboe terminal. Google Maps.
The Niger Delta covers about 70 000 km² (roughly 8% of Nigeria's total
landmass), and produces around 2 million barrels of crude oil per day,
an industry that has existed in the area since the 1950s. An average of
240 000 barrels of oil are lost into the environment each year, creating
massive levels of groundwater and soil pollution. This pollution is in
itself highly toxic and leads to a variety of chronic health problems,
but in the Niger Delta it is at such high levels that in many places
agriculture and aquaculture (fish farming) have become impossible or
severely curtailed, creating a food security crisis. Little of the
wealth generated by the oil extraction process has reached the people of
the Delta and there are no realistic plans to remediate the ongoing
crisis.
Oil companies operating in the Niger Delta have come under
considerable criticism from Nigerian and international human rights and
environmental groups for failure to report leakages and/or attributing
leakages caused by poor maintenance to sabotage or criminal activity,
for which it is not obliged to compensate local communities. The
Nigerian government has also come under criticism, for being over
reliant on expert advice from oil companies as to the cause of leakages.
See also...
Pipeline explosion kills at least twelve in Bayelsa State, Nigeria. Twelve people have been confirmed dead, three more have been seriously
injured and one is still missing following an explosion on an oil
pipeline in Bayelsa State, Nigeria on Thursday 9 June 2015. The incident
happened during repair work to...
Crude oil spill in Bayelsa State, Nigeria, blamed on poor maintenance by Shell Petroleum. An oil spill in Bayelsa State, Nigeria, has been...
Exxon Mobile facility in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria, occupied by protestors. An ExxonMobil terminal on the Quo Iboe River in Akwa Ibom State has been occupied by
protestors complaining at the oil company's failure to carry...
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