TELL Magazine

Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria, SPDC, has said that it has recorded 51 oil spills from its facilities in the Niger Delta this year.

This was contained in a report of Shell’s spills incident PORTAL on Tuesday.

According to the company, 44 of the spills were caused by sabotage by vandals while seven of the reported leaks occurred from its operational factors.

In May, eight spills discharged 253.07 barrels of Bonny Light from Shell’s pipeline into the environment.

Of the eight spills recorded, six were caused by sabotage whereas two were from operational factors.

The report showed that operational spills accounted for 6.07 barrels of the 253.07 while sabotage accounted for 247 barrels.

In the previous year, 2020, a total of 159 spills were reported with sabotage being responsible for 140 of the spills while operational factors were responsible for 19 of the incidents.

Although more spills, totalling 190 were reported in 2019 a similar pattern was observed sabotage was responsible for 183 while operational causes were responsible for seven spill incidents.