ExxonMobil Oil Spill in Nigeria Stretches for 20 Miles, Worst Since Company Came to Country


Sosialistisk Ungdom/CC BY-ND 2.0

During the Gulf Oil Spill we reminded readers that while massive oil spills make all the headlines in the United States, in Nigeria large spills are tragically commonplace (photo above)—so much so that it is one of the major factors behind armed conflict in the Niger River delta. 
Well, here’s just the latest example of this.

Reuters reports that an ExxonMobil offshore oil facility in Akwa Ibom state is leaking, spreading oily sludge 20 miles out from a pipeline that had been closed down last week.

Local fishermen are calling in the worst spill in the area since Exxon came in, describing women trying to scoop up the oil in buckets as it coats plants in the marshy region, all of it destroying the livelihoods of local fishermen.

ExxonMobil’s local director Mark Ward said Mobil Producing Nigeria aplogizes “for the inconveniences that it has caused.”

Destroying an ecosystem and wrecking the only work local people have is apparently a mere inconvenience.

Inconvenience, for whom?

Source Article from http://www.treehugger.com/energy-disasters/exxonmobil-oil-spill-nigeria-worst-since-company-came.html

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