You are here: > The Issues > Oil spills > Oil spills and imported fuel promotes 'illegal' oil refining

How oil spills and imported fuel promotes 'illegal' oil refining in the swamps of the Niger Delta

A dead catfish in the waters around Okpotuwari - the destruction of traditional livelihoods and scarcity of petrol for generators helps fuel the local refining and bunkering industry

November 2010: A team, headed up by the Environmental Rights Action group (ERA or Friends of the Earth Nigeria), recently visited Okpotuwari and a number of other riverine communities in the Brass Rivers area of Bayelsa State.

During their visit the team witnessed first-hand the environmental and human suffering endured as a result of oil exploration and got a local perspective on the practice of 'illegal' bunkering and refining.

Two and a half years agao, during July 2008, an oil spill occurred around Okpotuwari community. Shortly afterwards the oil caught fire and the inferno that followed destroyed large areas of the surrounding forest.

That spill was officially recorded by AGIP, the Italian Oil company that runs the local well-heads, as being caused by equipment failure, meaning that this oil spill was effectively AGIP's responsibility.

Over two years later, the area still shows the scars with large pools of oil spread out across the landscape surrounded by lifeless trees and waterways. On viewing the scale of the destruction, AGIP's claim that only 20 barrels of oil were spilled in 2008 seems like a serious under-estimation.

Despite this heavy pollution local people continue to try to eke out their traditional livelihoods of fishing, farming and logging. Fish catches are small and harvests have suffered with unseen dangers of heavy metals and other pollutants undoubtedly entering the food chain.

But having known no other way of living for countless generations, many in these riverine communities continue to fish, hunt, forage and farm in the only way that they know how.

With traditional methods of sustenance failing them, some in the local communities have turned to more dangerous activities in order to make ends meet.

With their landscape spoiled by oil extraction, and with no benefits they can see, local youths see no moral problem with using the oil that originates from their ancestral lands. They see themselves as having a god-given right to it, a right not respected by the companies that suck it out from beneath their feet, spoiling their land in the process. Cottage oil refineries are dotted around the Niger Delta, refining the crude oil into petrol, something local people can use and are in desperate need of.

With no reliable national power supply, petrol powered generators are the main form of power supply across the Niger Delta. This is true even in the larger urban areas where power is limited to a few intermittent hours each day.

Nigeria spent more than $5 billion importing refined fuel in 2007, despite being the seventh largest crude oil exporting nation in the world. By exporting the crude oil and refining it, the resulting petroleum products are then sold back to Nigeria at a profit. Yet many people in rural areas have to travel long distances to buy fuel for their generators.

Buying cheaper, local fuel that has been refined in the area is an appealing prospect for local people.

The crude oil refining business is dirty and dangerous work but it provides jobs for local youths and keeps them from getting involved in other, less useful criminal activities. Robbery and kidnapping are some of the other ways of making money in this difficult economic environment.

The refining of the crude oil is also seen as a service provided to local people. It helps them to reduce their transport costs and meet their local energy needs.

With the loss of traditional livelihoods, a grossly unfair system of oil extraction, plus a serious scarcity of refined fuel, these 'illegal' refineries operating across the Niger Delta are doing swift business.

As the Environmental Rights Action team found out, oil bunkering and illegal refining is not just the simple criminal activity that it is often made out to be.