Because for Oil companies, its always, all about the children….
Environmentalists blame Shell and other foreign oil firms for polluting the country’s oil-rich Niger Delta. Some environmentalists say as much as 550 million gallons of oil poured into the delta during Shell’s roughly 50 years of production in Nigeria — a rate roughly comparable to one Exxon Valdez disaster per year. An estimated 11 million gallons was released during the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska.Shell in recent years has said most of the spills in the delta are caused by militant attacks or thieves tapping into pipelines to steal crude oil, which ends up sold into the black market or cooked into a crude diesel or kerosene. Company statistics kept by Shell show spills have dropped as militant attacks in the region subsided, though this single spill at Bonga roughly doubles the amount of oil spilled by Shell this year.
A Shell deepwater drilling site off the Nigerian coast that the company reported leaking on Wednesday may have spilled up to 2.4 million gallons, according to nonprofit environmental satellite monitoring group SkyTruth.
If so, that’s far worse than indicated in statements made so far by Royal Dutch Shell, which has put the amount of oil leaked at the Bonga offshore site at “less than 40,000 barrels,” (1.7 million gallons).
“That could mean anything from 1 gallon to 1.7 million gallons,” John Amos, founder and president of satellite-imaging nonprofit SkyTruth told TPM.
Let’s not forget the Nigerian government isn’t above executing people that Shell find inconvenient. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Saro-Wiwa
totally get that.
But, EIB’s Pilodinal Cyst Morano is found sucking up to aliens for this election cycle (psycho) with others conserving only corporate slavery in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and other worlds –
“Watch Now: Morano on Fox News … Morano: ‘Ad is an insult to space aliens. Why would space aliens be impressed with a car that already had the same results in 1896? The 1896 Roberts electric car got the exact same battery range as the Chevy volt — 40 miles. If people are sober, they are not going to be swayed by this [Volt] ad. With all the govt mandates and subsidies, this is what is known as a huge government boondoggle’” (enrichment through corruption found on 2/5/12) (extremist home page soundbites written/assembled in a fraudulent/plagiaristic/incitement to riot T-buggers by Marc ‘conserving failed states’ Morano – peerless container model for Koch ExxonMassingill purchased corporate fraud+crimes against nature with w-Times Rev. Rush Moon types and gangs working a tomorrow’s con with legal slavery today; elite corporate whore who still lacks a page in en.wikipedia.org to chronicle his years of evil for hire, animal abuse, and visually challenging; climatedepot.com). Drooling, young foreign male gang-probing space alien “Rush Limbaugh Agrees With Mika Brzezinski: She Should ‘Feel Like An Alien’”; by Matt Schneider; mediaite.com, 6/20/11 and “Boehner: Talking to Obama Like Talking to Someone From Another Planet”; By Erick ‘hysteric porker’ Hamme; another tentacle of the Media Research Center, MRC, 1 of Looter Limbaugh’s celestial neuticles for documenting, exposing and neutralizing “liberal” media bias that includes: TimesWatch, Business & Media Institute, CNSNews.com, Culture and Media Institute, Eyeblast.tv, and other organs of legal international and domestic terrorism through environmental racism and other healthcare abuse; cnsnews.com, 9/15/11).
I remember that comparisons were made (but barely reported) between the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe and what has been happening in Nigeria for decades but, forgive my being lazy, can anyone close the circle for me, as follows:
Niger Delta = 1 Exxon Valdez per year = ??? Deepwater Horizon(s)
@ Martin Lack. I have no idea if these figures are correct for the Deepwater Horizon/Macondo spill. According to wikipedia the well leaked 4.9million barrels of oil. The Exxon Valdez spill was between 267,000 – 700,000 barrels of oil. I don’t quite understand why the Exxon Valdez estimate is so wide.
Assume 490,000 barrels for the sake of argument and easy numbers.
The spills in Nigeria equal 1 Deepwater Horizon spill every ten years or so.
But that isn’t the point. After the Deepwater Horizon explosion a lot of resources were marshalled and expended to try and contain the oil and disperse it at sea. We can argue about the effectiveness or otherwise of this effort but I imagine spill clean up in the Niger Delta doesn’t get anything like the same amount of resources thrown at it. Not to mention compensation. I know people in the Gulf states who lost their livelihoods are still fighting BP and the other companies involved. How much compensation, by comparison, do you think the average Nigerian fisherman can hope for? Bet it isn’t much if anything at all.
Many thanks for indulging my laziness, Dougal. However, your additional insight is also very welcome. At the time DH happened, I remember some people questioning the fact that so much effort was going into DH clean up, whilst Nigeria had been ignored for years. Don’t get me wrong, both are catastophes that should not have been allowed to happen. BP and all its sloppy sub-contractors should be pursued for compensation to the maximum extent possible under Federal and State Law (IMHO). If that means my pension takes a hit, so be it.
Irrespective of our need for them to stop burning fossil fuels in their refineries, all oil companies like Shell and BP that have been responsible (by sins of commission or omission) deserve to be put out of business by litigation. If we cannot make our politicians see sense, it is the only thing we have left apart from civil disobedience.
I completely agree with you Martin. But we’re addicted to the black stuff and serious addicts don’t let go easily.