In 2010 the world watched in horror as the Gulf of Mexico filled with 5m barrels of oil from an undersea leak caused by the careless handling of equipment on the part of BP and its partner Halliburton. Shocking images of uncontrolled spillage erupting from the ocean floor travelled around the world for weeks, sparking a media frenzy, a range of stern governmental responses and a huge amount of public outrage. BP has spent millions on the clean-up and millions more on a public relations campaign, all in an effort to repair the damage it caused to the Gulf but also to its image and, perhaps more importantly for BP, to its share price.
Last month, on the other side of the Atlantic, the oil giant Royal Dutch Shell's operation caused from 1m to 2m gallons of oil to spill into the ocean off the coast of Nigeria, also as the result of an industrial accident. It was the worst spill in Nigeria in 13 years in a part of that country where the oil and gas industry has been despoiling the environment for more than 50 years, on a scale that dwarfs the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico by a wide margin. Shell claims it has completely cleaned up the mess, but villages counterclaim the oil has been washing up on their coastline. The world's media seem to be uninterested in checking the facts.
You may wonder where the outrage against Shell is? To say that it is nonexistent except for a few responses from the environmental community would be an understatement. The simple fact is that Shell and its "sisters" in the West African oil patches are rarely scrutinised except in the most egregious cases – which this one surely is – and the world seems to simply expect that the people of Nigeria should live with these sorts of occurrences because they unfortunately lack the political and media clout to do otherwise.
In any other region of the world the behaviour of the companies involved would result in major sanctions and criminal prosecutions. Hundreds of square miles of sensitive coastal wetlands have been poisoned, perhaps forever. Fishing areas have been turned into toxic waste zones. Village life has been grotesquely refashioned as a result of flaring gas fumes and pipelines that sometimes run through people's homes. Disease, birth-defects and chronic illnesses are all part and parcel of an unregulated industry that operates outside the range of global media but with the full complicity of the Nigerian government that wants nothing whatsoever to upset its unctuous cash-cow.
A recent report on the Ogoniland region conducted over a period of 14 months by a team from the United Nations environmental programme suggests that it would take upwards of 30 years to clean up the Niger Delta, with an initial price tag of more than $1bn. However, it is unclear whether Shell or the Nigerian government will put one dollar towards this effort without continuous international pressure.
In 1995, Shell was implicated in the government-sanctioned death by hanging of Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa who led one of the first and best organised campaigns against the oil giant and its irresponsible behaviour in the Delta, as well as its corrupt practices in its dealing with the Nigerian government. As a result of the outcry that followed the death of Saro-Wiwa, Shell stopped production in the Ogoniland region, but it still maintains – rather poorly, in fact – a large pipeline and storage infrastructure, which are the cause of a continuous stream of oil flowing into the waters surrounding hundreds of desperately poor communities. While Shell claims that most of these spills come from sabotage attacks, the fact is that it does little policing and almost no effort is expended on clean-ups.
This is a circumstance that would simply be impossible in a country with the slightest bit of rule of law or the decency to look after its most vulnerable citizens. Nigeria has been reeling from a series of terrorist attacks on Christian churches, which certainly did capture the world's media attention over the Christmas weekend. However, in the case of this latest oil spill and the hundreds of others that have destroyed the lives of tens of thousands of people, the global media have had very little to say.
Unlike BP's share prices, which plummeted in 2010 after the spill, Shell's have barely had a hiccup. Chalk it up to the difficulty of reporting from such a remote region or chalk it up to racism. Whatever you want to call it, it is a disgrace but also a call to action to anyone who cares about fairness and the health of our planet.
• This article was amended on 9 January 2012. The piece originally opened with the sentence 'In 2010 the world watched in horror as the Gulf of Mexico filled with 5m gallons of oil from an undersea leak caused by the careless handling of equipment on the part of BP and its partner Halliburton.' In fact, the spill was 5m barrels, a much greater volume. This has been corrected.
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9 January 2012 10:52AM
Oil companies care not. The share price is the concern. Bleed this thing dry for a few more years of profit. Truth is people care less about Africa, and all developing nations. Is it racist? I'd say so. They know they can get away with it as they know generally western people careless. It's easier so they do it. The racism is all of ours, not just the oil company.
9 January 2012 10:56AM
Unfortunately the goverments and- as far as they are allowed to have and express opinions- the people of Africa seem to be just as indifferent.
9 January 2012 10:59AM
Bonga spill: 40,000 barrels leaked into the Atlantic
Deepwater Horizon spill: 4.9 million barrels leaked.
That's over 120 times more oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico.
Perhaps those facts, omitted in this CIF, help to explain the difference is the media's response (which has not been "silence" as stated here).
Recall:
"...but facts are sacred"
CP Scott, 1921
9 January 2012 11:04AM
The article is also talking about 50 years of spillage and other pollution. Depressing that so few people have bothered to comment.
As long as we've got our cheap energy and no rich folk have been inconvenienced, that's ok.
9 January 2012 11:10AM
Halliburton weren't a partner in the Macondo well, they were a contractor.
9 January 2012 11:11AM
Adamastor
It's a Maslow's Hierarchy of needs thing. If your main concern is subsistance survival than you won't be too concerned with environmental issues - I wouldn't call it indifference from African people, but yes, many of the governments are corrupt. The west has a historical hand in that too.
9 January 2012 11:21AM
Not entirely sure that accusations of racism are warranted.
Big business doesn't give a toss about the colour of the people who get trampled in pursuit of profit.
9 January 2012 11:23AM
So long as you have criminals running the government of Nigeria the plight of the masses in the Niger Delta is simply doomed.
9 January 2012 11:29AM
A timely article which is a reminder that African lives and livelyhoods matter about as much today as they did in colonial times. I recall one of the revelations uncovered by wikileaks revealed a communication in which Shell boasted about having an employee at every level of Nigerian government including civil servants. It made the front page of the Guardian in 2010. Despite this there is a tendency to blame the Nigerian government, and implicitly the Nigerian people, for allowing these global oil corporates to get away with not only polluting the Niger Delta but for the deaths of hundreds of people in pipeline explosions.
Mainstream racism in the West is still tainted with the view of Africans as essentially backward tribal people whose culture is not compatable with democracy. The same as the arrogant concept of Arab exceptionalism that was so thouroughly smashed last spring. The Guyanese socialist historian and anti-imperialist activist, Walter Rodney, hit the nail on the head when he wrote:
`The civil war in Nigeria is generally regarded as having been a tribal affair. To accept such a contention would mean extending the definition of tribe to cover Shell Oil and Gulf Oil!` (How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, 1972)
True when Rodney was writing, and even more so now in our age which has seen the hegemony of global corporate capitalism established and enforced by force of arms and political duplicity.
9 January 2012 11:29AM
delphinia
Indeed it is.
My comments were directed towards the repeated statements in this CIF regarding the December spill. These statements occur throughout this CIF.
Furthermore, there have been many stories throughout the years about the spills and vandalism that have occurred in Nigeria. One could argue that even more coverage should have occurred in the past. But that is certainly not the same thing as the claims here of media "silence",...
Once again, I refer to the words of CP Scott.
9 January 2012 11:43AM
I was looking in the articdle for any mention of 'NNPC' or 'Nigerian National Oil Corporation', who are the majority owners of every single oil well, pipeline and pump station operated by Shell in Nigeria....
9 January 2012 11:45AM
However, religious warfare, witch-hunts and the persecution of homosexuals all seem to have a higher priority than environmental damage.
9 January 2012 11:49AM
I know of Nigeria, and Africa in a general sense, and could wish for things to be very different than they are. I could wish for European colonization of the World to have never taken place, for capitalism to have never reared its ugly head in turn, and many other things relating to these events...
9 January 2012 11:50AM
Shell sponsored this newspaper's entire Copenhagen climate conference propaganda. Shell are the good guys.
9 January 2012 11:51AM
If the Nigerians themselves don't speak out, no one will do it for them.
9 January 2012 11:53AM
The trouble with Maslow's triangle is that it is deterministic and provides people who should be fighting back (middle class Americans who are afraid to say no to their country's appalling social, economic and military policies, say, because they are worried about not having enough saved for their pensions) with a excuse to do nothing.
9 January 2012 11:59AM
Now we know, Shell holds sway over the government in the most corrupt and sinister manner.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/dec/08/wikileaks-cables-shell-nigeria-spying
9 January 2012 12:01PM
sHell have lied about the amount of spillage, even the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) have stated that
“From the beginning, it was 1,000 barrels of spillage, moving to 30,00 barrels to 40,000 barrels and possibly beyond”.
This oil spill will have devastating effects on people already stricken by poverty and you can bet your bottom dollar sHell won't be digging into their profits to alleviate the suffering.
'Higher gas and oil prices have pushed up profits at ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell during the three months to the end of September.
Current cost of supply net income at Shell doubled to $7.2bn (£4.5bn), compared with $3.5bn during the same period a year ago.'
Recall
"...but lies are sacred"
sHell, all the time.
9 January 2012 12:02PM
Nigerian government & Nigerian elites are surely front and centre when it comes to the blame game for this appalling state of affairs. Shell may well have been the invisible hand, okay, supposedly invisible hand, behind the judicial murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa but it was the Nigerian state that did the hanging.
And, yes, of course Western governments and the imperial legacy are implicated.
9 January 2012 12:02PM
I feel that you are mixing arguments.
1. Exploitation of resources because, for many reasons, they can do more unethical things in some areas of the world such as equatorial Africa. Oil companies tend to do this anywhere they can get away with it. The Exxon Valdiz fiasco is an example of how an oil company perverted the course of justice in the US.
2. Racism. This I'm not certain about. I think the oil companies would do it to anyone they could to further their aims. Everyone is expendable. Profit means exercising brutal power as their means justifies their ends. Ken Sarowiwa is a classic (and very sad) example of this.
No one can actually touch the oil companies. They hold too much power in too many high places.
9 January 2012 12:03PM
Adamastor
So you are saying that African peoples are incompatible with Liberal Democracy in effect. I would put those things down to poverty ultimatley. It has a cultural background sure, but geneally education and wealth alleviate some of those things. I wonder how much the homophobia is a result of missionary Christianity that was purposfully implanted to have nice little slaves who accepted worldly pain until the afterlife.
9 January 2012 12:06PM
Nevermind:
It's an inane point, but nonetheless:
No. The article states plainly:
Has there been a appropriate level of media coverage? No. And it's been nearly two decades since Ken Saro-Wira was executed - but still Shell continue to operate in the region, without a loss in profits. Public apathy may be one thing - but how are people supposed to have knowledge of this when the media fail to report it?
9 January 2012 12:18PM
BSspotter
That's what I was saying - it's easier for the companies to operate because of the conditions in developing countries. The companies come across as indifferent behemoths devoid of morality. They might sponsor The National Portriat Gallery in an attemp to absorb some of the humanity there and add it to their PR campaign, but that too is a commercial technique. I'm merely saying that find it easier as the outrage is far less. Look at events like the Bhopal disaster and the payouts made to those families compared to payouts for westerners. The companies just cost it out before hand. Black is cheaper, for them.
9 January 2012 12:22PM
I think as pointed out by someone above, the amount of oil spilt in the Gulf of Mexico was about 4 million barrels, around 300,000,000 gallons, as reported by this very paper. The Bonga spill is approximately 40,000 barrels, around 2 million gallons. While clearly this isn't good, equating the two spills with each other is at best terrible fact-checking, at worst deliberately misleading.
Also, as mentioned by another poster, how about an article on the monstrously corrupt NNPC (Nigerian National Petroleum Company), a major shareholder in almost every field in the country, or the fact that a vast majority of oil spills in the delta are the result of illegal tampering with pipelines by the public, known as bunkering? But I suppose those stories don't fit with the 'big bad western company suppressing the noble savage' narrative that the guardian uses for all stories regarding Nigerian Oil.
9 January 2012 12:24PM
@richjames.... and the article was wrong:
"the Gulf of Mexico filled with 5m gallons of oil from an undersea leak [...] Last month, on the other side of the Atlantic, the oil giant Royal Dutch Shell's operation caused from 1m to 2m gallons of oil to spill into the ocean off the coast of Nigeria"
Macondo actually spilt over 200 million US gallons, which is a lot more than the 1- 2 million gallons (US or imperial?) spilt at Bonga.
Facts are sacred eh?
9 January 2012 12:27PM
Am I?
Where?
Except that educated and wealthy Africans appear to show no more concern for the environmaent or good government than less well-educated ones
Christian missionary activity was strongly connected with the suppression of slavery, though.
9 January 2012 12:28PM
@undertherainbow..
"it's easier for the companies to operate because of the conditions in developing countries. The companies come across as indifferent behemoths devoid of morality. They might sponsor The National Portriat Gallery in an attemp to absorb some of the humanity there and add it to their PR campaign, but that too is a commercial technique. I'm merely saying that find it easier as the outrage is far less."
And yet Shell win prizes from the WWF for their production activites in the heart of a national park on the Ravi field in Gabon, a producing country just around the corner form Nigeria.
Perhaps the issues in Nigeria are Nigeria specific?
9 January 2012 12:34PM
Ken Saro-Wiwa found himself unable to speak out after they tied a noose around his neck.
Nigeria should be the richest country in Africa due to it's oil, but it remains desperately in poverty. Instead the country has been corrupted by those in poser and in corporations who benefit most from creaming off the profits. The small price corporations pay in revenue losses is deemed acceptable as it's much less than paying to help the country develop, coupled with actually paying for the mess that these oil fields have created.
Once more we witness injustice in a less developed region while in the Gulf of Mexico, with the film teams on site 24 hours a day, BP were all too keen to get the oil out of sight ASAP. And pay they did. They paid for the toxic chemical Correxit to ensure the oil sank, they paid the local black population to dredge the beaches,and they paid people to shut their mouths.
As long as there is injustice in Nigeria and around the world, we need journalists and NGOs to keep these crimes in the news. The oil industry contractually ensures its workers cannot speak out about wrong doings, but they cannot shut the rest of the world up, even while they set about destroying it.
9 January 2012 12:36PM
The media has so much to answer for. Even the major environmental organisations seem to join in with this boycott.
9 January 2012 12:40PM
Aoplogies, that should have been 200,000,000 gallons for Macondo referenced above, no edit function! Still 100 times more than the recent Nigerian spill and therefore in no way comparable.
9 January 2012 12:42PM
One of the most depressing aspects of the article is the likely direction of future oil exploration and extraction on the African continent. Whilst Congolese authorities seem - for the moment - to have nixed a proposal to explore for oil in the Virunga National Park, we should expect drilling to start in and around Lake Albert any day now. Whilst the Government of Uganda is not outstandingly corrupt by Nigerian standards the same cannot be said for the country whose government gave the word 'Kleptocracy' to the world under Mobutu, and whose political and economic elite continue to demonstrate zero interest in either the welfare of the environment or the well-being of its' population. Lake Albert is already under huge environmental pressure, and its' fisheries have crashed in recent years, The prospect of largely unregulated oil extraction here could produce results which make the Niger delta look positively well regulated by comparison. Rumours of recent finds in the heart of the Congo basin - the world's second largest remaining rain forest and source of one of the world's great river systems- are enough to keep one awake nights.
9 January 2012 12:48PM
It is entirely to the oil companies' liking to have criminals in charge of the country. This is and always been to their economic advantage. Almost all the oil profits go to a tiny corrupt minority. The government has just withdrawn the one social benefit they provided to the general people - subsidised petrol. Of course led to a huge black market and even more corruption.
It also has to be remembered that a large proportion of oil spills in Nigeria are sabotage of the pipelines by locals, either to steal or 'liberate' the oil or fuel, or as part of a terrorist/freedom fighter campaign.
Of course, oil is a finite resource, and Nigerian oil will run out eventually. Most of the production is offshore now, and this provides lower profits due to higher operating costs. The government withdrew the subsidy because they could no longer afford both it, and pay the military to keep the population from rebelling even more than they do already. Much the same as Egypt, where oil revenue fell to zero so the government was toppled, allowing a defacto military coup.
Between MEND in the south, and Islamists in the north, expect another failed state falling into anarchy and bloodshed.
9 January 2012 12:49PM
This from the Reuters article:
"Nigerian villagers say oil from the spill at Bonga, 120 km offshore, had washed up on the coast, blackening stretches of it and killing fish, but Shell has denied that the oil could be from the Bonga facility.
"Satellite and aerial imagery has confirmed that the Bonga oil leak could not have reached coastlines in the eastern Niger Delta," the statement said, adding that the oil washing up on the coast must have been a "third party spill".
Spills by all oil companies operating in the region are common, and it is sometimes hard to tell where they originate.
"Oil from the Bonga leak had largely dispersed by Sunday, December 25, 2011 due to the integrated efforts ... in the application of dispersants and natural processes of dispersal," the statement said.
Shell's pipelines in Nigeria's onshore Niger delta have spilled oil several times. The company usually blames such leaks on sabotage attacks and rampant oil theft."
Shell can hardly blame the locals for this one. 120 km offshore and they make entensive use of yet more toxic chemicals to ensure the oil sinks out of sight. What oil does wash up is claimed to be from "third party sources".
As the Gulf spill demonstrated, we cannot rely on reports from oil companies as they habitually downplay any spill.
9 January 2012 1:00PM
NeverMindTheBollocks
9 January 2012 10:59AM
And you swallowed all this? How does it taste being the mouthpiece of the oil industry? Have you tried a Corexit/Slickgone cocktail? Tastes kinda toxic doesn't it?
9 January 2012 1:03PM
RichJames
You and this CIFer simply need to learn about units of measurement. Such things are taught in science courses, which are taught at universities such as University of Massachusetts Boston, but not in the "international relations" department.
9 January 2012 1:09PM
Come on Editors of the Guardian. Put stories like this on the front page.
Be better than the rest of the press in this country and make a difference by giving it the coverage it deserves.
9 January 2012 1:11PM
A Shell spokesman stated this in a recent press release:
“We believe the oil on the beach is not from Bonga. We made significant progress every day to disperse the oil that leaked from Bonga We were disappointed to see images of a third party spill which appeared to be from a vessel, in the middle of an area that we had previously cleaned up.
“We are confident that any oil of that age, color and consistency that hits the beach is not ours. We are taking samples as part of the joint investigation which will be reviewed to provide evidence that this is not Bonga oil on the beach. We advise all parties to wait for the outcome of the investigation of the oil sample which will be handled by a reputable lab overseas.”
So Shell are preparing an investigation that will clear them of any blame. How incredibly convenient.
This statement would have made me laugh if it wasn't so ridiculous:
"Oil disperses naturally though evaporation and bio-degradation. Dispersants speed up natural dispersion. Main benefits are that they remove concentrated oil from water surface and disperse oil into the water column where it naturally degrades. The magic you refer to is the combination of all these efforts..."
There you go. Shell are relying on magic to clear up their image. What next? Voodoo?
9 January 2012 1:17PM
This piece originally opened with the sentence 'In 2010 the world watched in horror as the Gulf of Mexico filled with 5m gallons of oil from an undersea leak caused by the careless handling of equipment on the part of BP and its partner Halliburton.' In fact, the spill was 5m barrels, a much greater volume. This has now been corrected.
9 January 2012 1:20PM
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/01/us-nigeria-oil-spill-idUSTRE8000EN20120101
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-16320764</a http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2012/01/02/Fishing-suspended-after-Nigeria-oil-spill/UPI-27301325541972/
http://www.npr.org/2011/12/26/144289006/nigerian-oil-spill-contained-before-reaching-coast
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/12/nigeria-oil-spill/
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/Nigerian-Oil-Spill-Stretches-900-Square-km-says-Environmental-Group-136182053.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/23/science/earth/oil-spill-moves-toward-nigerian-coast.html
http://www.iol.co.za/news/africa/nigeria-oil-spill-contained-shell-1.1204634
Yes, Michael, you are a lone voice in the wilderness alright.
Nothing like a few Troofer-style conspiracy theories to generate eyeballs, eh?
9 January 2012 1:25PM
I think it's time for the Guardian to take this CiF down, considering that the fundamental premise was so wildly incorrect (2 million gallons compared to 5 million barrels).
Quit while you're ahead guys.
9 January 2012 1:27PM
Obviously you were too busy laughing to notice that the entire premise of this CiF was false (5m barrels compared to 2m gallons).
9 January 2012 1:34PM
'facts' according to Shell, right?
For years Shell also denied being involved in the death of Human Rights activists in The Niger Delta but have recently started paying compensation to the survivors of those killed.
Whenever you've got time off work this summer please take a vacation down to Bonny or go on a 'green' vacation to The Niger Delta and then you can really see for yourself the level of degradation of the environment and compare the media's response ( or lack of it) with The Deepwater Horizon spill.
9 January 2012 1:35PM
A quick Google.com search reveals this:
Bonga oilfield: 227,000 results
Deepwater Horizon: 10,500,000 results
Now compare the Wikipedia entries for the two:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill, an extensively documented event.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonga_Field. Just one brief line about the spill.
Note that the Bonga field spill doesn't even get a new entry.
Also note that the Bonga spill resulted in a 923 square km oil slick that disappeared as if by magic...
9 January 2012 1:43PM
Why? Worried that the bad news is spreading?
As for your comment about the size of the spill, how does the "small scale" of this equate to the 923 km square oil slick? Consider also the approx. 5% volume (compared to the spilt oil) of Corexit/Slickgone sprayed on this slick.
Suddenly this slick operation is starting to look rather nasty. Good that the Guardian are covering it, especially as Shell were unable to cover over it themselves.
9 January 2012 1:44PM
Charlotte, thank you for correcting that Guardian spill 42* volume error. You might also want to correct Halliburton's role from 'partner' to 'contractor' {one of several} & the causation from 'careless handling of equipment' - it was rather more complex.
Actually, since the original article has now been shown to be trash, perhaps just take it down?
9 January 2012 1:46PM
I think you have appeared to miss the fact that the Bonga oil spill is less than a 1% of the size of Deepwater Horizon. Using your google search results as a proxy (not a particularly trustworthy one), Bonga has had approximately 2% of the coverage of Deepwater Horizon, so in terms of size of spill, Bonga is actually been reported significantly more that the Macondo well, and the headline could actually read:
Bonga spill recieves 50% more coverage per gallon than Gulf of Mexico Spill!
Man I love statistics.
9 January 2012 1:50PM
Should read:
Bonga Spill receives 100% more coverage per gallon than Gulf of Mexico Spill!
Clearly don't love stats or spelling as much as all that, pride, fall hubris etc...
9 January 2012 2:00PM
even if they do not care abount the environmet in Nigeria the leaking oil is still worth something.
9 January 2012 2:00PM
Afro70
Even this CIFer uses the same estimates.
Naturally, if you have any actual credible facts, rather than just groundless insinuation, that contradict these estimates, then all of us would be interested.
9 January 2012 2:08PM
What is it about the oil industry? Don't they know that any publicity is good publicity?