NIGERIA: Company officials from Royal Dutch-Shell say an oil spill off the coast is being contained

Record ID: 235411

  • Title: NIGERIA: Company officials from Royal Dutch-Shell say an oil spill off the coast is being contained
  • Date: 28th December 2011
  • Summary: LAGOS, NIGERIA (DECEMBER 26, 2011) (REUTERS) CONTRACTED INTERNATIONAL CLEAN-UP WORKERS WALKING AT THE AIRPORT VARIOUS OF PLANE ON TARMAC WITH WRITING IN ENGLISH "OIL SPILL RESPONSE" VARIOUS OF WORKERS LOADING CLEAN-UP PLANE (SOUNDBITE) (English) SHELL NIGERIA CHAIRMAN, MUTIU SUNMONU, SAYING: "The source of the leak has been identified. We have been able to isolate it. I'm hoping that production resumption is not going to be in the distant future." VARIOUS OF INTERNATIONAL OIL SPILL WORKERS LOADING CHEMICALS ONTO PLANE (SOUNDBITE) (English) SHELL NIGERIA CHAIRMAN, MUTIU SUNMONU, SAYING: "Frankly, at this stage my focus was really not on cost but just on to deal with it, to get it under control. And then the issue of cost is a secondary priority." VARIOUS OF PLASTIC CONTAINERS FILLED WITH OIL SPILL CLEAN-UP CHEMICALS OIL SPILL RESPONSE PLANE ON TARMAC BONGA OIL FIELD, AT SEA (DECEMBER 26, 2011) (REUTERS) VARIOUS AERIALS OF BONGA DEEP SEA OIL FIELD VARIOUS OF SIGN READING IN ENGLISH "WELCOME TO BONGA" VARIOUS OF CONTROL ROOM AND MONITORS ON THE BONGA OIL FIELD MORE OF INSTALLATION VARIOUS AERIALS OF OIL SPILL IN THE SEA AERIAL OF CLEAN COASTLINE
  • Embargoed: 12th January 2012 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Nigeria, Nigeria
  • Country: Nigeria
  • Topics: Disasters,Energy
  • Reuters ID: LVA9CB8KKA3T47W9RZ761871JO86
  • Story Text: The largest oil spill in Nigeria since 1998, is being brought under control, company officials at Royal Dutch Shell said on Monday (December 26).
    Nigerian authorities and Shell rushed to put emergency measures into place to prevent the spill of up to 40,000 barrels of crude oil from the Bonga facility washing up on the Nigerian coast.
    The chairman of Shell Nigeria, Mutiu Sunmono, said his company had brought in specialists and top of the range equipment aboard a C130 plane to help disperse the spill.
    He added that production at the Bonga deep sea oil field would start as soon the clean up operation was completed.
    "The source of the leak has been identified. We have been able to isolate it. I'm hoping that production resumption is not going to be in the distant future," Sunmono said.
    A U.N. report in August criticised Shell and the Nigerian government for contributing to 50 years of pollution in a region of the Niger Delta which it says needs the world's largest ever oil clean-up, costing an initial $1 billion and taking up to 30 years.
    Sunmono did not say how much was being spent on the Bonga clean up effort.
    "Frankly, at this stage my focus was really not on cost but just on to deal with it, to get it under control. And then the issue of cost is a secondary priority."
    The spill happened last Tuesday (December 20) while a tanker was loading oil.
    It led to the complete shutdown of the company's 200,000 barrel per day (bpd) Bonga facility, about 120 kilometers off the coast of the West African nation.
    Environmentalists said the spill could affect more than 900 square kilometers of ocean.
    The Bonga incident is small compared to last year's much documented rupture of BP's Macondo well off the United States. The Macondo disaster caused nearly 5 million barrels of oil to spew into the Gulf of Mexico.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2011. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register