We covered the Shell Oil Spill when it happened almost two weeks ago. The facts are this: Royal Dutch Shell operates an offshore barreling facility 120km from the Nigerian coast. This was shut down by a spill on the 20th of December. Shell sent out five ships to contain the spill. Oil is now washing up on the Nigerian coast.

Shell says no oil from the spill washed up on the coast.

“We believe the oil on the beach is not from Bonga [their off shore facility]. We made significant progress every day to disperse the oil that leaked from Bonga,” Shell Nigeria spokesman Precious Okolobo told Reuters in an emailed statement.

Meanwhile, after a call to Shell from the villagers of Nigeria fell on deaf ears, members of the community have been left to clean up their beaches themselves, pulling jerrycan after jerrycan filled with crude from the sludge covered sand. Scores of dead fish have been washing up on the shore, causing those who rely on fishing for their food to find an alternative source of sustenance.

Oil spills are so common place in Nigeria that they are hardly noticed by the rest of the world. Given the company’s already damaged public image in South Africa, with the fracking debacle in the Karoo, can you still say, “Go well, go Shell”?

[Source: MSNBC/Reuters]