IRIN Focus on oil pipeline fires

Inhabitants of Okpe local government near Nigeria’s southern oil town of Warri know all about apocalyptic fires. They have seen them quite often shoot into their skies, kilometres high, visible even in the remotest settlements. And on dashing to the scene of the blazing spectacle they have seen scores of people, along with their jerrycans, buckets, wheelbarrows and other implements, burnt beyond recognition in raging infernos fueled by gasoline gushing from the ruptured pipelines of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). Such fires have exploded at least five times in the area since 12 July. Each time the scenario is the same, according to local residents: unknown people break a pipeline to siphon gasoline into waiting barges or tankers; the leak attracts impoverished villagers who come with their cans and buckets to scoop up the gasolene; then come the inevitable explosions, fires and deaths. More than 350 people are reported to have died in July’s incidents, the latest of which occurred in the last weekend of the month. The first and biggest claimed the lives of more than 300 people from the neighbouring villages of Oviri Court and Ugbomro, but that did not deter others as subsequent explosions and fires proved. The state-owned NNPC admits that its 5,100-kilometre fuel distribution network has been ruptured more often this year than before. Jackson Gaius-Obaseki, head of NNPC, who visited the scene of some of the fires in mid-July said 103 incidents of ruptured pipelines were recorded in the first half of this year as against 67 in 1999, 13 in 1998 (including the worst such disaster, in October 1998, when more than 1,000 people died) and two each in 1997 and 1996. The cost of repairs and lost fuel for the first five months of this year alone amounts to the equivalent of US $20 million, Obaseki said. “The fear and mourning are not for the dead but for millions of Nigerians living in communities around the vandalised sites, who would be inhaling hydro-carbon vapour and would either suffer lung cancer later or begin to die gradually,” he said. Previously, the communities near the sites were accused of breaking the pipelines, but the popular theory now is that they are being vandalised by a sophisticated syndicate with the technical skills to drill into pipelines buried three metres in the ground and with access to barges and tankers to evacuate the products. This belief was given credence about two weeks ago when the Shell oil company reported that a fire which forced it to shut three oil facilities near the Atlantic coast of Bayelsa, another Delta state, was caused by an attempt to illegally divert crude oil from its pipelines into eight barges. Three of the barges were burnt in the fire but no deaths were reported. Some accusing fingers have been pointed by Delta State government officials at elements in the security forces and the oil industry, who have the technical skill and the necessary cover to evacuate large quantities of petroleum products which, according to reports, are often exported to neighbouring countries. Many in the oil industry see these events as linked to the corruption and mismanagement in the NNPC group and the level of impoverishment of the people, who feel deprived of the oil wealth produced on their land. “You have a situation where the NNPC is not in a hurry to repair damaged pipelines and the local people feel they have a right to take some of this wealth flowing away in their backyard,” Tony Nwigwe, an oil worker in Warri, told IRIN. “And often those involved in breaking the pipelines are either serving or former employees in the industry, who know their way around.” President Olusegun Obasanjo, whose election last year ended more than 15 years of corrupt military rule, promised to redress the long years of neglect and degradation the oil-producing region has suffered. But after more than one year of waiting for his Niger Delta Development Commission, a body projected to kick start development in the area but whose creation has been delayed by politics, has left many in the region further disenchanted. The Ministry of Environment, created by Obasanjo to address the country’s environmental problems, especially in the Niger Delta, insists nevertheless that significant efforts are being made to come to terms with the many problems of the region, including the vandalisation of pipelines. “I have sought and made arrangements for the monitoring of the pipelines through the installation of infra-red satellite cameras,” Minister of State for Environment, Ime Okopido, told reporters in July. Okopido also said his ministry had acquired a thermal disruptor plant - special equipment for repairing the soil - for places in the Niger Delta affected by oil spills, but he said the government would now operate on the principle that the polluter will bear the cost of cleaning up.