ABUJA, Nigeria: Cleaning up decades-long oil pollution and restoring environmental health in just one of Nigeria’s crude-producing states will cost at least US$12 billion, investigators said on Tuesday (May 16).
Bayelsa state, home to some two million people, “is in the grip of a human and environmental catastrophe of devastating proportions”, they warned in a much-awaited report.
Lying in the Niger Delta region, Bayelsa is where oil was first discovered in Africa in the 1950s, and where companies Shell and Eni have operated for decades.
“Once home to one of the largest mangrove forests on the planet, rich in ecological diversity and value, the region is now one of the most polluted places on Earth,” the report said.
“At least US$12 billion” is needed to “clean up the soil and drinking water, reduce the health risk to people and restore mangrove forests essential to stopping floods”.
The four-year investigation was carried out by the Bayelsa State Oil and Environmental Commission — an international panel of experts and prominent figures who worked at the request of the local government.
It called on Shell and Eni, whose local subsidiaries still operate in the region, to pay a share of the bill.
“We are asking Shell’s new CEO Wael Sawan, before selling off Shell’s remaining onshore oil assets, to commit immediately to paying their share of the US$12 billion bill,” said the commission’s chairman, John Sentamu, a member of Britain’s House of Lords and former Archbishop of York.
In a written statement to AFP, Shell said it had not seen the report and could therefore not respond to its conclusions at this time.
Eni also said that it had not been consulted about the report and rejected allegations of “environmental racism” made by the commission.
In response to AFP’s request for comment, Eni said it “conducts its activities according to the sector’s international environmental best practices, without any distinction on a country basis”.
Both companies have blamed most oil spills on sabotage and theft.
“Regardless of the cause of a spill, we clean up and remediate areas affected by spills originating from our facilities,” a Shell spokesperson said.
Eni also said the company “undertakes to remedy in all cases” when spills occur.
Source: CNA
