The Nigerian oil firm, Aiteo Eastern E&P reported the
"extremely high order" leak from the Santa Barbara wellhead that it
jointly owns with state oil company NNPC in early November. Weeks later, the
wellhead was still violently spewing oil and gas.
"Attempts to stop the continuous oil and gas spill by
the operators had failed repeatedly for over one month running, wasting an
estimated over 2 million barrels of hydrocarbon and gas," a senate
resolution stated, adding it showed "a disappointing appearance of
technical incompetence in handling the incident on the part of Aiteo."
Nigeria’s Delta creeks and mangrove swamps are among the
most polluted areas on earth after decades of oil and gas exploration.
Senate President Ahmad Lawan said he was particularly
disappointed an indigenous company was involved.
“I believe that this particular case should be made to be an
example of what government and its agencies can do, not only to force the
alleged culprit to remedy the environment but also to penalize the oil company
for devastating the lives of the people of that area,” Lawan said.