ABUJA – An oil spill near the coast of Nigeria is likely to be the worst there in a decade, a government official said yesterday, as slicks from the Royal Dutch Shell spill approached the southern shoreline.
The slick from Shell’s Bonga field has affected 185km (115 miles) of ocean near Nigeria’s coast, said Peter Idabor, who leads the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency.
He said officials expected the slick to reach beaches within hours, affecting birds, fish and other wildlife in the area.
Shell, the major oil producer in Nigeria, said the spill probably happened as workers tried to offload oil on to a waiting tanker.
The company published photographs of the spill, showing a telltale rainbow sheen in the ocean, but said it believed that about 50 per cent of the leaked oil had already evaporated.
Shell estimates the Bonga spill was less than 40,000 barrels, or 1.68 million gallons. That is about the same amount of oil spilled offshore in 1998 at a Mobil field. The 1998 spill resulted in oil slicks extending for more than 160km (100 miles) to Lagos, the country’s commercial capital. – (AP)