Crude oil spillage in Bayelsa community
A crude oil leak from an 8-inch pipeline linked to Oil Mining Lease 29 (OML 29) has led to fresh environmental pollution in the Nembe area of Bayelsa State, affecting communities along the Santa Barbara River.
The facility is operated by Nembe Exploration and Production Company Limited, formerly known as Aiteo Eastern Exploration and Production Company.
According to a report by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), the spill occurred on October 1 at Tora, a community in Nembe. The volume of crude discharged into the river and surrounding areas is still unknown, but residents say the environmental impact has already been significant.
A letter signed by Mr. Iniruo Wills, Managing Partner at Ntephe Smith and Wills and legal representative of the Opu Nembe Kingdom, expressed concern over the effect of the spill on local livelihoods.
“The spill has adversely impacted the people who depend on the Santa Barbara River,” the letter stated.
The correspondence, obtained by a NAN correspondent, was issued in response to an invitation from the oil company for a Joint Investigation Visit (JIV) to assess the cause and extent of the damage.
The operator, Nembe Exploration and Production Company, acknowledged the incident in a letter dated October 5 (Ref: NEPCo/HSE-JIV/2025/04), proposing a JIV for the following day, October 6.
However, community representatives rejected the short notice and called for the inspection to be postponed to October 9.
“We remind you, as you are quite aware already, that the community requires and deserves decent notice to assemble a competent JIV team, some of whom usually come from Lagos, Port Harcourt, and/or Yenagoa, in order to ensure due diligence and avoid or countervail the perennial practice of manipulating the JIV process and suppressing critical information,” the letter read.
The community is calling not just for a thorough investigation and cleanup, but for a broader conversation with regulators and the company to establish lasting solutions.
“Beyond this spill, for the records, we demand on behalf of our clients again for a top-level engagement (Company, Community Technical Team, and Regulators) for a lasting overall framework to put a stop to this unbearable and continual burden,” it added.
NAN
