While BP destroys Louisiana, ExxonMobil destroys Nigeria

This video is called Shell Oil Refusing To Clean Up Spill In Nigeria.

A video, recorded in the USA, which used to be on the Internet, used to say about itself:

Omoyele Sowore: Nigeria and Big Oil

“… for every gallon of gas you buy, there is human blood in it.”

Omoyele Sowore spoke at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon on November 15, 2006.

Omoyele Sowore is a Nigerian Oil activist traveling through the United States educating people about tragic conditions in his country caused by our planetary addiction to petroleum. He spoke of the pollution of the Niger delta in Africa, of torture, of rampant and escalating poverty in a country producing 2.5 million barrels of oil a day, 25% of which goes to the United States.

Nigeria is the 6th largest producer of oil in the world. Omoyele tells the story of the ongoing destruction of the Niger Delta, not as a series of statistics, but as how it affected him growing up, affected his education and finally forced him to abandon his country in order to carry a message few people in the developed countries really want to hear or seriously consider. These remarks were not directed specifically to save his country, but more broadly, to include all people, all living things, all that exists upon our fragile earth.

While BP destroys the United States Gulf Coast, ExxonMobil destroys Nigeria …

From the Daily Champion, Lagos, Nigeria:

Environmentalists Blasts Mobil Over Use of Chemicals

3 June 2010

Lagos — Environmentalists have described the reported use of dispersants near the coast by Mobil Producing Nigeria to contain the May 1 oil spill as a violation of environmental standards in the oil industry.

The environmentalitsts, under the auspices of the Network for Safe and Secured Environment (NESE) told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in an interview in Eket Tuesday that it received reports that residents in coastal communities in Akwa Ibom, who inhaled the dispersants took ill. Dispersants are chemical substances used to combat oil spills, it dissipates and breaks down crude oil molecules and removes the oil from the water surface to the sea bed.

Mr. Bob Okon, an Environmental Scientist and the NGO’s Programme Director said that dispersants were toxic to both human and aquatic life, explaining that its use was restricted to offshore locations away from human settlements.

“The use of dispersants in the control of oil slick is usually a partial success because of the impact of the chemicals on marine ecosystem. It has been scientifically proved that dispersants increase the toxicity levels in the marine environment beyond tolerable limits.”It is usually not recommended near human settlements because of its toxicity to fish eggs, fingerlings and other aquatic life, so there is the need for the oil industry regulators to be more discerning before approving the use of toxic chemicals to mitigate oil spill,” Okon said.

He said that the NGO was concerned about the toxic level of coastal waters, challenging the management of the oil firm to urgently take steps to remediate the damages done to the environment.

“We demand that Mobil should immediately start conservation projects in its host communities, to mediate the damages done to the environment, to restore the environment to its natural state. “This is in addition to the conduct of an independent study on the toxicidity of the coastal waters to determine when it will become safe to advise fishermen to commence fishing activities, suspended when the spill occurred in May.

“Nigerians are at the receiving end and we cannot allow multi-nationals to flout our environmental laws. “Look at how the U.S. President reacted when a British oil firm BP, had an oil spill that affected American citizens, but an American oil company, Mobil frequently does the same thing here and it is swept under the carpet,” Okon said.

Who is responsible for the Gulf of Mexico crude oil leak? Here.

BP’S plummeting share prices amid the Gulf of Mexico oil spill may have wiped hundreds of millions of pounds off the value of ordinary workers’ pension funds in Britain, experts have warned: here.

As BP’s Spill Efforts Stall, Oil Creeps Toward Other States: here.

Anglo-Dutch oil major Royal Dutch Shell threatened on Thursday to scrap $40 billion (£27bn) of planned investments in Nigeria if MPs pass a proposed Bill that would boost state control over the petroleum industry: here.

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