Oil Spill? Oil Spill? Oil Spill? Sigh! This is a complicated issue involving various segments ranging from human error to technical issues, sabotage, oil theft and vandalism. These spills happens nearly every year, according to an article by Bukola Adebayo on 27th March 2019, study by the Journal of Health and Pollution shows that there has been more than 12,000 spills in the region between 1976 and 2014.
I am sure the oil companies must not be happy with these huge payouts, according to BBC News on the 7th of January 2015. Shell agreed to pay out $84 million over the oil spill in Niger Delta. Following my research on this issue, the oil companies argued that some of the spills were caused by them due to human or technical error but most of the spill were caused by theft, vandalism and sabotage which I am afraid, I will have to agree to. There were reports that the spills went on for weeks in some cases and Shell did not try to stop the spills or clean up the spills for that amount of time which to me did not add up knowing that Shell knows the effect it will have on the people and the community and what the consequences would be in terms of local, national and international laws.
At the time I was writing my thesis which covered this topic, I dug deeper and came across articles where Shell operatives claimed they could not get to those places due to security issues which again to me made sense. However, if Shell were not able to clean up the site due to delay on their part, then they were liable to pay the compensation fees but their claim was that the spills were not caused by them and it was due to vandalism or theft, the problem there is if it wasn’t their fault and were not able to get to the site because of security issues, should they be paying huge payouts, who takes the blame? Its Shell’s word against the community’s word or evidence has to be provided to back each others claim.
I covered this topic intensively for my Thesis and came to the conclusion that if the community leaders and the people of the community do not work in collaboration with the oil companies honestly and vice versa, Shell will leave and both parties will loose out. I do agree that Shell is liable for any mechanical, technical or human error caused by its employees or operations department and they are liable to pay out any penalty or compensation fees due to the community.
If Shell leaves and another company comes in and the same thing happens, won’t they leave too at some point? What happens when oil runs out in that area or oil stops being the major source of income for the country? The community should work in collaboration with these oil companies to develop the communities and improve the welfare and livelihood of its citizens. If the community is not committed to this, no matter what possible solutions experts bring to the table, it will certainly not work.
I will write a second part blog on this topic focussing on how the spill can be reduced to the minimal, it will involve a joint effort between the community and the oil companies.
This article is actually a fastidious one it assists new internet visitors, who are wishing for blogging. Margaretha Herbie Bobbi