20100629
allafrica

Mobil Producing Nigeria, MPN, has confirmed a second oil spill within a week in the Qua Iboe oil fields.



In a statement made available to the News Agency of Nigeria on Tuesday in Eket, Mobil confirmed a discharge of crude into the Atlantic Ocean from Yoho crude production platform.

"Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited, MPN, operator of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC/MPN Joint Venture, confirms that a very minor discharge occurred at Yoho production platform.

"Regulatory authorities were notified and the discharge was dispersed and evaporated," the statement said.

Though Mobil declined to disclose the volume of crude oil involved in the incident, officials of National Oil Spills Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) said that the firm reported a discharge of less than two barrels which they could not verify.

Mr Irvin Obot, NOSDRA's Zonal Director, said the agency could not cross-check the claim because it did not get an independent report from the affected people.

"In their report to us, they said that it was one point something barrel; even though it is insignificant, but again we cannot verify whether what they are saying is true or false.

"You don't have a means of cross-checking the volume except may be if there is a report by fishermen or people on ground from the beach.

"You can then go and check; but they just said it is one point something barrel from Yoho; that is what we got from their report and we cannot verify whether it is one point something barrel or not" Obot told NAN on telephone yesterday.

NAN sources at the Qua Iboe oil field said that the spill occurred during the loading of a foreign vessel, Northstar, at the Yoho offshore oil platform in the Atlantic.

It was gathered that the discharge was caused by a burst in the link between the Yoho field location and Mobil's Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) Vessel.

Reacting to the incident, Comrade Ekong Nelson, the Chairman Maritime Workers Union in Akwa Ibom, said that he got the reports from his members and came to see things for himself.

"Severally we have been having oil spillage problems here. Once oil spillage happens here, Mobil will not respond to the immediate problem.

"They will like to lobby even at the House of Assembly; they will like the lobby the Ministry of Environment leaving the people who have this business on ground.

"Most of them will come to my office and ask, Sir, why do we join, this union? The interest is not protected; when we write to Mobil, Mobil will not respond to us, so that is the problem we are having.

"They go about destroying our aquatic system. As far as I am concerned, they don't help the maritime sector.

"They don't help us but the little we have afforded by ourselves, they just destroy it.

"Look at the last oil spillage, nothing has been done," Nelson said.

Meanwhile, public affairs sources in Mobil also confirmed on Tuesday that the "Force Majeure" declared by Mobil on its Qua Iboe crude streams on May 12 was yet to be lifted, as the ongoing repairs had led to a decline in production.