20 August 2013, Lagos – Chevron Nigeria Limited and its host communities have expressed divergent views on a gas leak reported at Chevron’s offshore gas field in the Atlantic Ocean located off Bayelsa coastline.
Officials of National Oil Spills Detection and Response Agency, NOSDRA, confirmed receiving a report of a leakage in Chevron’s field last week.
Mr Adeyinka Adewumi, Head of NOSDRA’s Zonal Operations office in Port Harcourt said that the agency had received a report of the leak from Chevron and was awaiting a Joint Visit to ascertain the cause of the leak. Coastal communities in Koluama 1 and Koluama 2 communities had alleged that the gas leakage had discharged crude and gas into the environment leading to pollution of the air and marine ecosystem.
Community sources told the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, that the oil firm had been making frantic efforts to mitigate the leakage while the leak continued. Mr Larry Gabriel a resident from Fishtown community in Brass council area of Bayelsa said that leaking well, located about five kilometres from the site of Jan. 2012 gas explosion “is still discharging gas into the air.”
“The leakage is yet to stop, they have been deploying chemicals to dissolved the oil and sink it to the sea bed as it gushes out from the well. That is why they are saying that they have no oil spill. The traces of dissolved crude have hit the shoreline.”