5 March 2008
Lagos — MOBIL Producing Nigeria (MPN) has confirmed the oil spill at the Idoho Crude Oil Pipeline of the Qua Iboe Crude Oil Export Terminal last weekend.
The company said in a statement in Eket that traces of crude oil were sighted near the shoreline around Ibeno, near Eket, Akwa Ibom.
The statement jointly signed by MPN and NNPC said that the oil firm had notified the Department of Petroleum Resources and other relevant government agencies of the development.
Mrs Gloria Essien-Danner, the Executive Director, MPN, signed the statement on behalf of the joint venture. Some fishermen, said the oil spill occurred at the offshore Idoho Crude Oil Production platform between Thursday and Friday and spread to the coast on Monday.
"We noticed the spillage at sea at the weekend when we saw dead fishes floating at sea.
Mobil deployed Navy and Marine Police to patrol the place," Lucky Annang, a fisherman said. A community leader in Ibeno, Chief Okon Owon said the spill was a major one as 120 personnel were deployed by the oil company to clean up the spill. He said that the spillage had impacted on the fishing community negatively.
Okon said that the chemicals used in moping up the crude oil was toxic to aquatic life and hence paralysed fishing activities in the area.
He called for an independent environmental impact assessment to determine the rate of damage and compensation to be paid to the affected community.
In February, the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency visited the Qua Iboe Oil fields to ascertain the oil spill contingency preparedness of MPN.
The agency could not, however, inspect the oil wells as the oil company said that there were not enough aircraft to transport the officials to oil production platforms.
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