NEWS
Shell Blames Oil Thieves for Leak in Imiringi Community, Bayelsa
The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) has said that the reported oil spill from its facility in Imiringi community in Bayelsa was caused by oil thieves.
The company said that it carried out a Joint Investigative Visit (JIV) into the July 27 oil spill.
The JIV, is a statutory probe that follows every reported spill incident by regulators, operators, and community representatives to ascertain the cause, volume of spill and impacted area.
Mr Bamidele Odugbesan, Media Relations Manager of SPDC in a statement on Wednesday in Yenagoa, said that three barrels of SPDC’s Bonny light crude blend was spilled into the environment.
Although members of the Imiringi community had claimed that the spill had polluted farmlands and water bodies in the area, SPDC said the entire three barrels had been recovered, leaving a residue.
“SPDC, operator of the SPDC JV, acknowledges the occurrence of an oil spill from its ’’ Kolo creek Well 22T flowline facility at Imiringi on July 27,
“The report of the joint investigation of the incident led by the Government Regulator, National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), found that the incident was caused by illegal third-party activity.
“Meanwhile, cleanup, remediation and repair of the breached pipeline are ongoing.” the SPDC said.
The JIV ended on July 30, with all parties unanimously agreeing on the cause while repairs on the breached pipeline are ongoing.
According to SPDC, the JIV team comprised of the Government Regulator, Nigerian Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC).
Also on the team are the State Ministry of Environment, representatives of the impacted community and SPDC.
The oil firm stated that the outcome and report of the investigation, led by the Regulator, NOSDRA, was signed off by all members of the JIV team.
It will be recalled that environmental advocacy group, Environmental Defenders Network had called for clean up of the spill site to forestall possible spread to other communities in the area.
Chief Lagos Morris, Deputy Director of the group who visited the spill site, urged the relevant authorities to see to the remediation of the impacted area in view of the rains.
Morris, who called on all stakeholders to work towards preventing third party spills, condemned the act and urged that the perpetrators be fished out and prosecuted. (NAN)
The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Federal Operations Unit Zone C, says it intercepted contrabands with a Duty Paid Value (DPV) of N510.92 million between July 15th and September 15th, 2024.The zone covers the six states in the South-South geopolitical zone and the five states in the Southeast geopolitical zone.
This is contained in a statement signed by Jerry Attah, Public Relations Officer, NCS, Zone C, and made available to journalists on Wednesday. According to the statement, Comptroller Michael Ugbagu, NCS, Zone C, gave the statistics while showcasing the seized contraband to relevant regulatory agencies at the Government Warehouse in Edo.Ugbagu said that the zone also recovered the sum of N25.57 million from demand notices raised based on some infractions noticed, making a cumulative sum of N536.49 million recorded within the months under review.“The DPV was derived from our seized goods, which include 49,699 sachets of various brands of tramadol and 3,350 bottles of various cough syrups with codeine without an NAFDAC number.“1,015 sacks of dry donkey meat and skin, 75 jumbo bales of second-hand clothing, 463 cartons of foreign spaghetti, 269 pieces of used pneumatic tires, and 56 cartons of smuggled foreign tomato paste.“More worrisome is the interception of 49,699 sachets of various brands of tramadol and 3,350 bottles of various cough syrups with codeine without NAFDAC registration numbers.”He noted that the cough syrup with codeine and tramadol without NAFDAC registration numbers, if not intercepted, could have had adverse effects on youths.He added that the items were mostly intercepted along the Ewu-Okada/Benin expressways based on credible intelligence. (NAN)
The Forum of Stakeholders of the All Progressive Congress (APC) has decried the deplorable condition of some federal roads in Nigeria. Alhaji Saleh Zazzaga, the North-Central Chairman of the forum, said this in an interaction with newsmen on Wednesday in Jos. Zazzaga described some of the federal roads as ”death traps”, particularly those within the north-central region.
He said that some of the deplorable roads in the region include Jos-Akwanga, Makurdi-Oturkpo-Otukpa, Makurdi-Ankpa, and Jos-Saminaka. Other roads that needed urgent attention, he said, included Suleja-Minna, Ejule-Otukpa, Ganawuri-Manchok, Lokoja-Abuja, Lapai-Agaie-Bida, Birnin-Gwari-Bokani-Mokwa, Minna-Zungeru-Tegina-Kontagora. ”Currently, the north-central region has the most deplorable roads and highways in the country. ”These deplorable roads have brought severe hardship on the people and lost lives and property through preventable road traffic crashes. ”We call on President Bola Tinubu to intervene and ensure the rehabilitation of these roads because good roads are vital enablers of development,” he said. The chairman also called on governors of states within the region to reconstruct the dilapidated roads and seek refunds from the federal government. ”Though these are largely federal roads, they are located within states, and the beneficiaries are the people of these states. ”So we call on state governments to reconstruct these roads and seek refunds from the federal government,” he added. (NAN
The central parity rate of the Chinese currency renminbi, or the yuan, strengthened 160 pips to 7.087 against the dollar on Wednesday.This is according to the China Foreign Exchange Trade System.In China’s spot foreigners exchange market, the yuan is allowed to rise or fall by two per cent from the central parity rate each trading day.
The central parity rate of the yuan against the dollar is based on a weighted average of prices offered by market makers before the opening of the interbank market each business day. (Xinhua/NAN)
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