Oil spill from Shell’s Niger Delta facilities lowest in 10yrs

The combined volume of third-party and operational spills in the Niger Delta last year fell the most in a decade, oil major Royal Dutch Shell, has said.

According to the Shell 2020 Sustainability Report, the local arm, the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC), over the last decade cut the total number of operational spills in the Niger Delta by more than 60 in 2011 to 11 in 2020.

In 2020, SPDC reduced the volume of operational spills of more than 100 kilograms to about 0.02 thousand tons of crude oil (11 incidents) compared with about 0.03 thousand tons of crude oil (seven incidents) in 2019. This represents a year-on-year reduction of around a third by weight, it said.

The data show that the volume of operational spills is falling far faster than from third-party sabotage.

In 2020, more than 90 percent of oil spills of more than 100 kilograms from the SPDC JVs’ facilities were due to third-party interference and other illegal activities.

“The volume of crude oil spills of more than 100 kilograms caused by sabotage was 1.4 thousand tons (122 incidents) in 2020 compared with 2.3 thousand tons (156 incidents) in 2019,” the company said.

The data further show that its operational spill in the Niger Delta was the same as the rest of the world.

SPDC produces oil and gas through its joint ventures and operates a network of wells and pipelines across the Niger Delta, a region of forest, farmland, rivers, and marshes, home to around 40 million people.

It ramps investments in frequent overflights, on-the-ground inspections, and anti-theft protection mechanisms, such as anti-tamper locks and steel cages with CCTV for wellheads to deter third-party interference.

The company also said closer community relations, the use of new surveillance equipment and improved collaboration with government security agencies have led to quicker, more effective interventions before damage can be done. These strategies seem to be paying off.

According to the SPDC, the number of sites remediated in 2020 was 50 against 464 in total since 2016.

It is getting adept at responding and cleaning up spills. Whereas it took six days on average before joint investigations commence in 2016, it was reduced to two days in 2020. While it took 13 days on average to complete the recovery of surface oil, the time was cut to five days in 2020.

Rachel Asante, a biodiversity expert at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), cited in the report said SPDC approached the IUCN about getting some support in areas of remediation and biodiversity recovery.

“We are monitoring the spill sites but we’re also monitoring reference sites so that we can establish an environmental baseline. This project can contribute to what needs to be done in the Niger Delta. It’s not a panacea that will solve all the problems of oil spills in the Niger Delta, but I hope it can be part of a larger solution,” Asante said.

Ogoni clean-up

According to SPDC, it is working with the relevant stakeholders to implement the 2011 UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) Report on Ogoniland.

The clean-up efforts are led by the Hydrocarbon Pollution and Remediation Project (HYPREP), an agency established by the Federal Government of Nigeria.

The UNEP report recommended the creation of an Ogoni Trust Fund with $1 billion capital, to be co-funded by the Nigerian government, the SPDC JV, and other operators in the area.

SPDC JV said it had contributed $360 million out of its commitment of $900 million to the fund over five years.