Shell has just alerted Nigerian coastal communities that up to 40 000 barrels of crude oil was spilled on Wednesday off the coast of the Niger delta while it was being transferred to a tanker about 120 kilometres off the coast. The spill is likely to be the biggest in a decade.

Satellite images have suggested that the spill is 70 kilometres long and is spread over a total of 923 square kilometres.

The Bonga oil field, where the spill is said to have occurred, and which produces 200 000 barrels a day, has had all production suspended as of Wednesday night, as authorities decide how to move to curb the potentially devastating environmental damage that could now occur.

Nnimmo Bassey, head of Environmental Rights Action, a leading Nigerian human rights group based in Lagos, isn’t so sure we should trust Shell’s estimation of the spill:

Shell says 40 000 barrels were spilled and production was shut but we do not trust them because past incidents show that the company consistently under-reports the amounts and impacts of its carelessness.

We are alerting fisher folks and coastal communities to be on the look out. It just adds to the list of Shell’s environmental atrocities in the Niger delta.

In August, Shell admitted responsibility for two major spills in the Bodo region of the delta that took place in 2008, but it hasn’t yet paid out any compensation to those affected by those spills.

Tony Okonedo, a Shell Nigeria spokesman, issued a standard response:

Early indications show that less than 40 000 barrels of oil have leaked in total. Spill response procedures have been initiated and emergency control and spill risk procedures are up and running.

Shell is likely to face major criticism from this latest debacle because a major UN study said it could take Shell and other oil companies 30 years, and $1 billion to clean other oil spills in Ogoniland, one small part of the oil-rich delta.

[Source: Guardian]