Environmental and community rights groups have called on the former Shell Petroleum Development Company, now Renaissance Africa Energy Company Limited, and relevant authorities to urgently decommission Wellhead 14 in Yorla oil field, Khana Local Government Area of Rivers State, following a recent oil spill that devastated farmlands and rivers in Kpean community.

Representatives of Lekeh Development Foundation, Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Centre, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), environmentalist and activist Celestine Akpobari, alongside community indigenes, carried out an assessment exercise on the field to document the extent of the damage.

Following the visit, the groups later held an interactive session at the newly opened Lekeh Foundation office to discuss the crisis.

Earlier at the oil spill site, Kpean Youth Leader Lemii Donaldson Petaba lamented that the community has continued to suffer from abandoned oil facilities since Shell withdrew operations in Ogoniland after the 1993 Ogoni struggle.

“For the side of the spillage, we are really suffering because as you get to the site you will see, and when you look at the face of the community, it does not show that it is a place where an oil company and the number of oil wells are mentioned. After the Ogoni struggle of 1993, the oil company Shell abandoned all the facilities and left. When you visit location 123, you can see that they are all corroded systems, and they continue to spill over time. Our request is that those wellheads should be decommissioned, and after that, the place should be fenced and security placed there.

“The oil well is Oil Well 14, Yorla Oil Field, which is the oil well that spilled into our farmland and river. Shell should decommission all the oil wells, lock them, and secure the place. We even heard that some money was set aside to secure the place, but people have been using the money to benefit themselves.”

He further alleged that attempts to tamper with the site were foiled when community members apprehended intruders who tried to access the facility at night after the first joint investigation visit.

“The wellhead spilled on the third of August, then on the ninth of August, after the company came for their first joint investigation visit, some foreign persons came to the community at about 7 pm to invade the oil well so as to expend that spillage. Our people were very careful and were able to apprehend them, then we took them to the police, and Khana divisional police transferred them to the state headquarters. They are now in court.”

On his part, the Executive Director of Lekeh Foundation, Friday Barilule Nbani, condemned the repeated pollution of Ogoniland, insisting that oil companies must take full responsibility.

“We are sending our message out in a very bold manner to say enough is enough for this re-pollution oil spillage in Ogoni. We want the government and the oil companies to work together the way they are working together to eat our money, to eat the revenue from that extractivism. Let them work together again to solve community problems by helping in remediation, restoring, and building community strength.

“The Oil Well 14 should be dismantled, and those structures have to be removed, so the company, in particular, has to facilitate that as soon as possible and remove them because it is harmful to our people. Not only decommissioning, they should also make sure that particular land is fertile, just as how they met it. Whether Shell has been sold to Renaissance Energy does not stop them from cleaning their mess. They know how they work, so they should join heads together and clean that place up.”

Also speaking, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) Director, Nnimmo Bassey, described the Kpean spill as another reminder of decades of neglect in the Niger Delta.

“The oil spill at Kpean community confirms many things: that there has never been a proper reaction or response to oil spills in the Niger Delta over the past seventy years, and for oil wells that have been abandoned since 1993 to keep on polluting the environment, it shows that there is no safety in the oil-rich communities in the region. The visit was just a confirmation that disasters are just lurking in the corner.

“Any non-decommissioned old oil well is a potential time bomb, from the first one at Oloibiri to the latest ones anywhere that have been abandoned and left undecommissioned. So we are calling on the government to now order the oil companies to decommission all their old oil wells, dismantle them, remove all the rotten pipelines, and replace them with new ones or just clean out the area. This is our call.”