Shell explains use of trucks to transport crude from spill site at Ikarama in Bayelsa

The Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) says its use of vacuum trucks to convey crude from oil fields in the Ikarama community of Bayelsa is a measure to clean-up an earlier spill incident.

An SPDC Spokesman, Mr Joseph Obari, stated this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Yenagoa.

He said the use of trucks to lift crude from Ikarama manifold was part of a clean-up process, and described as untrue allegations by members of the community that the company had abandoned the use of its vandalised pipelines.

He said there was no alternative to the use of pipelines to lift crude from oil facilities in Ikarama, adding that pipelines remain the best option in every sense.

“On January 27, there was an act of sabotage on the Ikarama manifold, resulting in the spill of about 302 barrels of crude oil into SPDC Right-of-Way and beyond.

“Some 0.74 hectare of the environment was affected by the spill, but almost all of the spilled oil was recovered.

“Oil recovery activity involves collection of spilled oil in tanks for evacuation by vacuum trucks and taken to the nearest flow station for processing.

“That was the process that has been misinterpreted as SPDC resorting to using tankers to transport crude oil because of poor pipeline integrity,’’ he explained.

Obari said the SPDC Oil Spill Response and Remediation team was cleaning up the site, adding that remediation of the 2013 spill sites that could not be remediated because of flood in the area was also in progress.

He regretted that some portions of the spill sites where remediation was completed were polluted by another sabotage spill that compounded the problem. (NAN)