The Federal Government of Nigeria should take responsibility for the three-year-old inferno at its Ororo-1 Well at OML95 and must extinguish the fire as soon as possible. The Federal Government must also ensure that remediation activities in the affected community of Awoye in Ondo State are carried out immediately.
These were the outcomes of a media briefing and documentary screening on the Ororo oilwell fire held in Lagos on Monday. The documentary was produced by an environmental non-governmental organisation called the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) after several visits to the Awoye community.
It was gathered that the oil was originally established by Chevron in 1986. However, due to high pressure from the well, it was sealed and abandoned. Over 30 years later, OML 95 was sold to Guarantee Petroleum and the Ondo State-owned oil venture. Along the way, the Department of Petroleum Resources revoked the licence from the joint owners before they could begin production. It was in the course of this event that the blowout occurred in May 2020.
A 2021 report by African Oil and Gas Report stated that “Although the company that engaged the services of the owners of Grace-1 HWU was Guarantee Petroleum, a Nigerian E&P independent, the Nigerian government, having revoked the rights of the company to the field, took ownership of controlling the well fire.
The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), in May 2022, told Africa Oil+ Gas it would do all it could to extinguish the fire, including possibly drilling a relief well and engaging Boots & Coots Services, a Halliburton-owned firm of well control specialists, to put out the fire.”
HOMEF, in a recent documentary titled Ororo Inferno, “A Tragic Odyssey of Injustice and Environmental Destruction,” showed that the fire still burns viciously day and night, harming the marine ecosystem and disrupting fishing and other economic activities in the nearby communities.
Field data reports show that the reservoir pressure was 8,000 pounds per square inch (psi) and above, and the surface pressure was about 4,600 psi as of the incident. It’s a widely held view by a range of technical specialists in the industry that such a highly pressured well should not have been re-entered with a workover rig with less than adequate blowout preventers (BOP).
Nnimmo Bassey, Executive Director of HOMEF, said: “The Ororo-1 well inferno is a symbol of a burnt national conscience. It represents a huge discounting of the lives of the people, their culture, and their ecosystem. We are seeing the blatant burning of fossil gas and the spilling of crude oil in disregard of the health of the planet at a time when urgent climate action is needed. There is no word to describe this horrid debacle. Ororo-1 is a crime scene that needs international attention and action since the Nigerian government is asleep on it.”
Executive Director of Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA), Akinbode Oluwafemi, said: “The host community bears the brunt of this issue. This video challenges the government and its agencies to respond.”
Members of the Awoye community at the screening also spoke about the devastation they had faced since the oil well fire began.
“We must travel very far into the sea before we find fish. Help us beg the government to find a solution to this issue,” Temilorun Ajimisogbe, a fisherman from Aowye, said.
“Awoye is not what it used to be,” said Taiwo Ilabiri, a female resident of Awoye. “Food to eat is expensive and difficult to get. There is no good water to drink. Children are no longer going to school. They go to pick periwinkles to survive.
We plead with the government and those who can speak for us to help us,” she added.
A mother of four, Modupe Ogunbure, a resident of Awoye, said, “We are afraid to speak because we don’t know what will happen if we voice out. My children who are in higher institutions and their younger ones in secondary school are at home with me because of no funds.”
Another Awoye resident, Etawole Olatokunbo, said: “Things are not going well in Awoye. Nobody was ready to help Awoye. We thank God that HOMEF came. We need help.”
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