Bonga Oil Spill, Nigeria
The Bonga oil field lies in water 1,000 meters deep across an area of 60 km2. Bonga oil field is located in the license block OML 118 (previously called OPL 212) [6]. Bonga’s major operator is Shell’s subsidiary Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company Limited (hereafter SNEPCo) who owns 55% of the license. The other partners are:
-the North-American multinational Exxon (owning 20% of the license);
-Nigerian Agip Oil Company (owning 12,5% of the license), a subsidiary of the Italian ENI;
- Elf Petroleum Nigeria Limited, a subsidiary of the French multinational Total S.A. (owning 12.5% of the license) [6].
It was discovered in 1995, exploitation started in 2005 and it is estimated to close in 2022. It has the capacity to produce more than 200,000 barrels of oil a day and 150 million standard cubic feet of gas a day.
On December 20th 2011, a tanker was loading crude oil from an offshore platform in Bonga field and due to a leak caused by an operational error 40.000 barrels of crude oil were spilled in the open sea (this amount is estimated by Shell, there are reasons to believe it could be even higher).
The huge oil spill reached the coast of of the Niger delta affecting more than 185 km of coastline and over 20 riverine communities, like the Odioma community and two communities in Ekeremor.
The Environmental Rights Action (hereafter ERA) field monitors promptly visited the affected communities and reported their findings. The spill had spread in the environment, truncating the community’s livelihoods. As a result of the spill, the livelihoods of the local people have been truncated, due to contamination of their open water, fishing activities have been difficult, leading to loss of employment and it has led to migration of people from these communities in search of fresh water.
Business as usual: the victims pay the damages - the corporations are making the profits.
Shell (the major owner of the exploitation license) has refused to accept full responsibility for the incident and had rebuffed the claims from the communities affected by the spill. The National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (hereafter NOSDRA) fined the multinational “$1.8 billion as compensation for the damages done to natural resources and consequential loss of income by the affected shoreline communities as well as a punitive damage of $1.8 billion”. Shell refused to accept the fine and brought the case to a Nigerian federal court by 2016. Yet by May 24th, 2018, a federal judge ruled that Shell’s subsidiary SNEPCo is liable to a $3,6 billion fine to be levied on by NOSDRA. A group, made up of victims from the spill, has come together to fill in a suit against SNEPCo in London, since Shell is still refusing to pay the fine and compensate the victims, even though allegations have found the origins of the spill to be an operational error. It is considered that at least 168,000 people have been affected by Bonga spill, one of the worst in the Niger delta.
By early 2019, in 13 years of operation, the Bonga field had reached the extraction of 800 million barrels. The exploitation of Bonga oil field is expanding. In February 2019, SNEPCo released an invitation to tender to contractors for the development of the Bonga South West Aparo (BSWA), about 15km southwest of the existing Bonga’s main FPSO. This new development will include more than 20 deep-water well and a new FPSO vessel.
Links
Environmental Justice Atlas: Shell Bonga Oil Spill
https://ejatlas.org/conflict/shell-bonga-oil-spill-nigeria
The Guardian| Nigeria on alert as Shell announces worst oil spill in a decade: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/dec/22/nigerian-shell-oil-spill