Mkpoikana Udoma
Port Harcourt — The Health of Mother Earth Foundation, HOMEF as well as residents of Gbarantoru Community in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State and environmentalists have expressed concerns over intensified gas flares from a facility operated by Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited, SPDC.
This is as there has been a heavy gas flare from a Shell facility in Gbarantoru, Ekpetiama kingdom of Yenagoa for over a week; an horizontally flared gas so huge and menacingly noisy, which has forced a primary school within the vicinity to shut down due to its impact.
SweetCrudeReports gathered that very high-pressure liquid suspected to be water was being sprayed into the air in the direction of the huge gas flare, probably aimed at reducing heat produced by the flame or have some chemical reaction with the noxious gases being released.
People living near the gas processing facility which feeds the Nigeria LNG Limited in Bonny, expressed shock over the sudden upswing massive gas furnace close to homes in the community.
A resident of the area, Mrs. Patricia Ebi, said it was absurd that Shell was intensifying gas flare when other operators like TotalEnergies had recently ended gas flaring in its operations.
She expressed shock at the increased flares and emissions of gas in the neighbourhood which threatened the quality of air inhaled by people who reside in the area.
“The thick smoke is an indication that the combustion is not complete and therefore emission of toxins that pollute the air and compromise the human respiratory systems here.
“It is also an irony that at a time we cannot afford to buy cooking gas, the same gas is being flared and wasted, polluting the environment,” Ebi said.
Another resident, Ibenewari Gregory, regretted that the operator of the gas processing plant, SPDC, has not deemed it fit to update residents on the ongoing operations.
“Shell has not come to talk to anybody before flaring this gas, the flare which has gone on for days without respite is a threat to public health here.” he said.
Meanwhile, the Health of Mother Earth Foundation, HOMEF, has decried that the intensified flares from Shell facility which had gone on for over a week was causing damages to the people of Gbarantoru healthwise, and urged the government to swiftly intervene.
Executive Director of HOMEF, Dr Nnimmo Bassey, lamented that gas flaring was pervasive in the Niger Delta, a harmful and wasteful practice.
Bassey noted that aside from being a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions responsible for climate change, the impacts of gas flares on the health of community people, ecosystems, biodiversity, aquatic resources, agricultural production, livelihood sources, as well as the larger Nigerian economy were deleterious.
“HOMEF considers the activity of Shell as contravening the fundamental right to life and dignity of the people of Gbarantoru and their neighbours, as specified under sections 33 and 34 of the amended 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. And as affirmed by a High Court ruling in November 2005 in the case of Jonah Gbemre against Shell.”
HOMEF noted that World Bank figures from 2013 to 2019, showed that about 319.48 million standard cubic feet of gas was flared into Nigeria’s environment amounting to a waste of $1.08 billion.
“This is without a cost to the amount of pollution caused. Between 2020 and the first two months of 2024. So about 595.1 million standard cubic feet of gas has been flared in nine Niger Delta states, cummulatively amounting to another waste of $1.9 billion and more damage to the environment,” the group said.
