Royal Dutch Shell company oil wells continue to pollute Ikarama community land in Bayelsa state.
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Royal Dutch Shell company oil wells continue to pollute Ikarama community land in Bayelsa state.
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Shell aggravates pollution abandons spill site in Bayelsa
The Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), a Nigerian subsidiary of behemoth oil giant, Royal Dutch Shell has continued its pollution spree discharging more crude to the environment at Ikarama community in Bayelsa, impacted by an earlier spill.
SPDC had suspended the use of its dilapidated pipelines and deployed trucks to convey crude from its oil fields in Ikarama community.
Sahara Reporters gathered that a fault in the manifold compelled the oil firm to suspend the use of the pipeline
Residents say that the practice of using trucks to lift crude from SPDC’s Ikarama manifold had gone on for months.
A spill from the Rumuekpe crude delivery line discharged about 482 barrels of oil into the environment on Nov. 2, 2013.
According to the Joint Investigation Visit (JIV) report on Shell’s website, the spill was caused by sabotage on the pipeline by oil thieves.
It was reported that the spill impacted an area covering 6,400 square meters.
Checks at the oil facility on Tuesday showed that loading of crude oil from the manifold involved opening valves on the pipes to pump crude oil into stationed trucks.
The oil tankers make between six and eight trips each even as two trucks were awaiting loading when SaharaReporters visited the field.
It was further observed that the operations had led to several leakages discharging oil into the surrounding environment where an earlier oil spill had yet to be cleaned up.
The JIV report claimed that the recovery of the oil spill commenced on Nov. 12, while clean up of the spill site would be completed in April 2014.
However, examination of the oil field showed that the clean-up had not commenced as claimed by Shell.
A spokesman for the oil firm, Mr Precious Okolobo, declined comments on the slow response to the oil spill cleanup and use of trucks in lifting crude oil from the polluted land.
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