Photos courtesy of Morris Alagoa at ERA/FoE Nigeria.

The rig has now completely collapsed under the intense heat of the flames. Chevron is still “finalizing plans for a relief well to fight the fire”. But these pictures show no sign of the company’s efforts to monitor the impact of the fire or protect local fishers.

The local community, which relies on fishing as a primary means of livelihood, has drawn attention to the ecological impact of the disaster. Below is a deformed dead fish observed near the site.

The company has so far dismissed the impact on local livelihoods, claiming that “no impacts to the beach have been reported.” However, the disaster appears to be having devastating consequences for marine life. As ERA reports from the Koluama River:

“There were dead fish floating and some in throes of death; struggling to stay alive.”

Chevron has been criticised for its lack of transparency over the incident. Locals have been kept in the dark about Chevron’s emergency response plan, the risk to the local population and any information about efforts to control the fire and limit the environmental damage. Chevron has also been silent about what the worst case scenario and what this means for its stakeholders.

Reuters reports that:

Local people reported a loud explosion on the rig early on Monday. “I heard a really loud bang and there was a fire,” local village chief Young Fabby, 55, said by telephone.

A statement from civil society groups, NAGCOND (National Coalition on Gas Flaring and Oil Spills in the Niger Delta), demanded greater transparency from Chevron and an immediate response from the Nigerian government:

NACGOND is shocked by the news of the blowout and fire on the KV Endeavour, and is worried by the sheer frequency of these incidents within the oil industry in the Niger Delta. We extend our condolences to the colleagues and family members of those injured or missing.

We are aware that this is already a major incident with potential for disastrous impacts on the local environment, ecology and livelihoods of communities in the region.

We call on Chevron to immediately release all information that it has on the present situation and likely developments in coming days.

We call on the Federal Government to make an immediate assessment of the situation, and to mount a vigorous response to attenuate the consequences of the fire. If the situation is as grave as we fear it is, then we ask that government should work with both Chevron and, if necessary, the international community to mobilize an effective response.

We urge both Chevron and the FG to immediately inform communities living in close proximity to the site, and in the region of the actual situation and also afford them a realistic assessment of the risk that this incident poses moving forward.

The incident is just the latest in a long run of major offshore oil spills in Nigeria by Shell, Chevron and Exxon Mobil. Last month, a ruptured pipeline at Shell’s Bonga platform spilled an estimated 40,000 barrels into the sea and threatened the livelihoods of dozens of local fishing communities. Oil companies have a legacy of over 55 years of environmental devastation onshore in the Niger Delta. Chevron is one the largest oil operators in Nigeria, producing an estimated 524,000 barrels per day in 2010, second only to Shell.

Brazil lawsuit

Chevron is also facing a $10 billion lawsuit for a recent pollution incident in Brazil, Bloomberg reports. On 7 November 2011, Chevron spilled 3,000 barrels of oil 230 miles off the  coast of Rio de Janeiro after subcontractor Transocean’s drilling caused cracks in the sea floor.

Brazilian authorities have said they may prosecute employees, shut operations and exact more than $10 billion in fines after the leaks at the Frade field.

Brazil has imposed multi-million dollar penalties on both companies for their inadequate responses to the spill, and suspended their operating licences.Some governments are taking a more robust approach to offshore regulation since BP’s Gulf of Mexico disaster. For an industry that has remained conveniently out of sight for decades, the political pressure comes as an unwelcome surprise. Nansen Saleri of Quantum Reservoir Impact LLC, told Bloomberg:

“Those countries who choose to go on a very punitive path at the end will suffer the negative consequences themselves,”

With respect to Saleri, who incidentally worked for Chevron (1974-1992), and has been involved in drilling projects in the Gulf of Mexico and West Africa, it is unlikely that investors will be walking away from an estimated 5 to 8 billion barrels of oil in Brazil’s newly discovered Tepi field, in the so-called “pre-salt” oil basin. The Brazilian government is right to require higher environmental and safety standards and to punish those companies in breach. A $10 billion fine is probably one of the most effective means of ensuring that the highest standards are met and deepwater disasters are prevented from happening again.

Will Nigerian regulators do the same? As I’ve argued elsewhere, the token penalties currently imposed by the Nigerian government have little or no impact on multinationals with notoriously low standards. Companies have exploited lax regulations for decades, and local communities have suffered the consequences. Serious penalties that are properly enforced could stem the tide of daily oil spills, regular accidents and safety breaches. Multinationals and their subcontractors should be made to bear the cost of their own mistakes. Ultimately, regulation could also save lives.

© Ed Kashi, http://www.edkashi.com

remember saro-wiwa commissioned leading performance poet Zena Edwards to write and perform a new work, reflecting upon the role of oil companies in the deteriorating human rights situation in the Niger Delta.

We have reproduced her poem and a photo by renowned photographer Ed Kashi, which inspired the commission, and included a video of Zena performing poetry at a press conference event at Amnesty International UK on 9th April 2009.

Untitled

by Zena Edwards

Ken, there is a photo of a girl
12,13 slim wrists long neck
she walks wearing peach, blue flip flops
stepping with familiarity
over the slippery backs of 8 pipelines
she is at 5
holding an umbrella with a bright yellow shell on it
she seeks protection from a gentle rain falling from an African sky
behind her, between giant palm leaves
dragons roar, bellowing black billows, seething
belligerent belches of acridity in the sky
when I put my ear close to the glossy paper I can hear
her asthmatic breath

each clap of her plastic flip flop against her heel
makes a poem, applaud the poem in her step
it is the sound of everyday people who live between the pipelines, tapeworms
vampiring the placenta, excreting toxic
into the bloodstream of a nation
the rivers are graveyards, the wetlands thirsty for clean breath
the land is haemorraghing
miscarrying cocoyam and vegetable seed

Boys who have given up waiting for jobs to come
Idly eye her as she walks by
A generation numbed by the futility of existence
It is ironic that their most valuable asset is their  Achilles heel
As the stagnancy of fervent youth
Dumps them in the hands of AK47 robber gangs
who howl in the night to the tune
Of their masters – myopic madmen in business
Grappling for a fist of flaccid dollars
Greed at the price of a village

But then again, everything has its price in this world
Like this girls poetry in her step, her lungs
A fair currency, fat with poisonous air
Her mothers sludge garden, her fathers chest
Face and shoulder, burned in the last accident

The truth is a jealous but patient thing
It brook no hazes of the facts or credibility gaps
There is only one fragrance it will lie with
Time, the scent of time moves from fresh to death, rot to humus fertilisation of new days

It is between the pages of a day in court
That a mystery will be solved
Why it takes twelve long years to walk the twisted violent gauntlet to justice
Why nine lives were thrown into a wound cut with knives of lies

How the spirits of the tortured and the murdered
Can be redeemed from the dispassionate mouth of brutal
greed
And how with the wondrous alchemy of Nature, instead of bitter bile
Rising into the mouths of fishermen and farmers

work songs will rise over the trees
Will dance with the fish along the creeks
Will paint across a sky uninterrupted by fire and towers of black smoke

And how the poem of the girl with the blue flip flops can be fetched

From under the fattened rump of human disregard

And raised to re-imagine the world
Why she close the umbrella with the yellow shell
And walk in the unpolluted gentle rain falling from an African sky

© Zena Edwards

Visit Zena’s myspace page for more poetry, music and performances.