Oil vandals, thieves hit Shell twice

 Despite condemnation and public enlightenment, vandals and oil thieves continue to attack the International Oil Companies, IOCs and others in the Niger Delta.

Probably, worst hit is the Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, apparently because of its huge size as the highest producer in Nigeria.

Investigation by The Daily, over the weekend indicated that the company has already been attacked twice in February 2020.

Specifically, the first and second attacks took place on February 6 and 11, 2020, at ‘Imo River 2 to Ebubu pipeline at Ogale and Okordia to Rumuekpe pipeline at Ikata’ respectively.

According to the company, it had suffered 11 attacks in January 2020 alone, which culminated in many losses, including of oil and damage of pipelines.

In its current report, Shell stated: “Oil spills due to crude oil theft and sabotage of facilities, as well as illegal refining cause the most environmental damage from oil and gas operations in the Niger Delta. Irrespective of cause, the SPDC JV cleans up and remediates areas affected by spills originating from its facilities.

“A key priority for Shell is to achieve the goal of no spills from its operations. No spill is acceptable and we work hard to prevent them. Regrettably, in addition to spills caused by criminal activity there were nine operational spills of more than 100 kg in volume from Shell Companies in Nigeria facilities during 2017. This number is one more than the eight spills in 2016.

“SPDC has publicly reported oil spill statistics annually since 1995 in the Shell sustainability report and this website further enhances transparency on spills in Nigeria from SPDC-JV facilities. It tracks the progress of our spill response from when we learn about the leak to when clean-up is completed and certified by Regulators.”

It added: “Security remains a high priority due to continued crude oil theft and criminality in parts of the Niger Delta. Illegal refining and third-party interference are the main sources of pollution in the Niger Delta today.

Third party interference caused close to 90 per cent of the number of spills of more than 100 kilograms from The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited operated Joint Venture (SPDC JV) pipelines in 2018. Security in parts of the Niger Delta remains a major concern with persisting incidents of criminality, kidnapping and sabotage as well as onshore and offshore piracy. Although there has been no damage to key oil and gas infrastructure caused by militant activity since November 2016, the security situation remains volatile in this region of the country.

“Facilities operated by both indigenous and international oil and gas companies continue to be affected by attacks and other illegal activities such as crude oil theft. This led to disruptions to oil and gas production in 2018 particularly for indigenous producers and incidents of environmental contamination. Disruption to production also influenced revenue for the Federal Government of Nigeria and to gas supply to power electricity for industry, businesses and public-sector services.”

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