The Sustained Damage to Nigeria

Nigeria has been turned into arguably one of the most oil-polluted regions in the world over the course of the 50 years it has been active as a oil-producing region. It has gotten so bad, that an "assessment, commissioned by the Nigerian government and funded by Shell, concluded that restoration of the area could take up to 30 years, cost $1 billion and become the largest cleanup operation in history." Considering the source of the study, since both of those parties have a vested interest in the oil industry of the country, this statement may need to be taken with a grain of salt. However, the damage is hard to deny, and the effects are being felt now perhaps more than ever.

Oil prospectors from foreign lands first struck oil deposits in Nigeria in 1956. Over the years, the region has been highly subjected to damage from the production and manufacture of oil; from spills, to illegal refineries that refine crude oil in a manner that releases large quantities of pollutants into the environment. The spills, according to a 2001 review, were as follows: "fifty percent (50%) of oil spills is due to corrosion [of transport pipes], twenty eight percent (28%) to sabotage and twenty one percent (21%) to oil production operations. One percent (1%) of oil spills is due to engineering drills, inability to effectively control oil wells, failure of machines, and inadequate care in loading and unloading oil vessels." The review also lists oil spills since 1976, with more than 100 spill incidents yearly (most spills in a year was 515 in 1994), and quantities of oil released into the environment exceeding 7,000 barrels a year (the highest quantity at the time of the listing was 489,294.75 barrels in a year). However, Shell asserts that the majority of spills are due to sabotage and theft. I am inclined to believe that they are simply stating that based on how much oil they are losing, not how much is known to have been released into the environment. Because, if you really think about it, someone who is sabotaging a pipe to steal oil is going to try and make sure they obtain most or all of the oil that they steal, not simply dump it or let it continue to leak after they are finished.

The illegal oil trade in Nigeria is highly volatile as well. The work is dangerous, with crude refineries for crude oil giving off toxins that can make the person working the still sick (and those exposed from releases as well), aside from being at risk of injured by an explosion of natural gas waste products. This practice is also showing very little sign of being halted; military personnel, which are supposed to be trying to prevent such activities, are easily bribed to let it slide. Meanwhile, Shell is eager to try and pin the majority of the spill damage on such activities, since they are by nature undocumented. But they so often change the numbers regarding production in the region that it becomes difficult to get a clear figure on the matter from the region at all. Their offshore spills can't be so easily pawned off, but they can easily blame inland incidents on the locals.

All of the pollution in the region is making things more difficult than ever before in the region. Fisheries and croplands are steadily being degraded to the point where food cannot be obtained from them. And while one would think that the government would use its power to make the oil companies take better preventative measures and a greater role in the repairs, government members get the majority of their money from the oil industry, and that is where most of the money in the economy stays. The people hardly ever see any sort of direct benefit from the oil industry working in their land, and even if they did, would it outweigh the detriments?

Currently, a new development is taking place in the matter. Nigerian farmers are suing Shell in the homeland of the company, instead of  in Nigeria. With some help from the Dutch branch of the environmental group Friends of the Earth, they are taking the Dutch company to court in the Netherlands, an unprecedented move, in the hopes that they will get compensation for the damage that has been caused so far and for clean up operations to be carried out. Shell is planning to base its defense on the illegal activities that damage pipelines and refineries, to escape liability in the matter. They claim to have cleaned up three locations that were damaged by spills, but if the chart on spills from the 2001 article is still relevant to current trends, that is probably only a fraction of what has actually been released into the environment. A ruling is expected early next year.

Overall, the Nigerian situation has devolved into an unpleasant system of corruption, violence, and environmental degradation. If any number of factors had been carried out differently, perhaps the situation would not be so dire: if the government had focused more on the people instead of the revenue, if the company had taken better preventative measures, or if they had taken a stance that would benefit the people more than the governing bodies, the situation would possibly be beneficial to the people of the region. But then again, considering that this story is typical of such oil prospecting in third world areas, there wasn't really much hope for such forethought. Hopefully, things will get better one day. Its just too bad that the damage will be around for longer than the company, in all likelihood.