17 August 2012, Sweetcrude. LAGOS – THE Royal Dutch Shell said on Friday it had contained oil leaked from a failed pump within a flowstation on Nigeria’s Nembe Creek though local residents disputed this, saying it had spread to mangrove swamps.
“There was no oil spill, and there was no impact on the environment,” said Precious Okolobo, spokesman for Shell Petroleum Development Corporation, SPDC, the local unit of the Royal Dutch Shell in Nigeria.
“The pump was immediately shut down. However, some oil escaped from the seal into the saver pit in the flowstation, with some sheen observed,” he said.
A Reuters reporter on the scene saw spilled oil, some of it lapping against the roots of mangroves, but Nigerian Naval officers barred access to an area behind the flowstation where locals reported a large oil slick.
“We observed a crude oil slick and sheen along the creek and, it continued into the Brass River,” said Alabo Nengi James, an official in the Ewelesuo community of the Nembe Kingdom.
“Shell has not done any containment; no such signs at all.”
Oil spills from equipment failures or loading accidents are common in the swampy Niger Delta region of Africa’s top energy producer.
The Anglo-Dutch oil major says locals sometimes exaggerate the impact in the hope of boosting their compensation claims
