Mkpoikana Udoma
Port Harcourt — The Joint Investigation Visit, JIV, to the leaking gas facility operated by the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, NPDC, in Sangama community, Bonny Local Government Area of Rivers State, is yet to be concluded.
It will be recalled that gas leaks on the in Well 6 facility which was recently divested by the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited to NPDC was first noticed on August 16, 2022.
The JIV stakeholders have not agreed on the cause of the leaks. NPDC officials claim the leaks were caused by sabotage while members of the host community outrightly rejected this claim, citing equipment failure as the cause.
As a result, the JIV was declared inconclusive until pertinent issues raised during the exercise are resolved.
A JIV is a statutory procedure that follows every oil and gas incident by representatives of oil firms, host community and regulators to ascertain the cause, volume and area impacted by the oil spill incident.
The JIV was done by a team comprising the Ministry of Environment, Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, Department of State Services, Nigerian Navy, Bonny Environment Consultants Committee and Sangama Community.
Speaking at the JIV, an official of the NPDC, Roland Brown, said the leakage detected in Well 6 located in Sangama on August 16 2022 and September 3, 2022, were caused by third party interference and not equipment failure.
Brown said preliminary observations carried out by the company revealed that the gas head in well 6 was tempered with prior to the leakage, stressing that the NPDC has an ongoing policy of maintaining its facility often to avoid such leakages.
However, representatives of Sangama Community on the JIV unanimously rejected the position of the NPDC, insisting that the incidents were caused by equipment failure occasioned by corrosion on the gas head that resulted in the leakage.
Youth Leader of Sangama community, Mr Iyalla John-Jumbo, wondered why the NPDC will seek to absolve itself of blames even when the ecosystem has been polluted and the lives of Sangama people impacted.
John-Jumbo called on the relevant authorities to prevail on NPDC to do the right thing, warning that any attempt to do otherwise will be resisted by thr community.
“Environmental justice is what we are asking for. You cannot allow your facility to spread dangerous gas into our atmosphere and put the lives of our people at risk and refuse to take responsibility.
“We want the Federal Government to direct the NPDC to shut down the facility, conduct air quality assessment in and around the community, provide medical checks for our people who were in the vicinity when and for the period the incident happened, and engage the community to discuss how to resolve this issue.”
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