Oil Spill from OML 29 Contaminates Bayelsa Communities

Yenagoa (Nigeria): An oil spill from an 8-inch crude delivery pipeline at Oil Mining Lease 29 (OML 29) has polluted Nembe communities around the Santa Barbara River in Bayelsa.

Nembe Exploration and Production Company Limited operates the OML 29 asset, formerly Aiteo Eastern Exploration and Production Company Limited.

The leak at the Tora area in Nembe occurred on October 1, discharging an undetermined volume of  Crude stress into the Santa Barbara River and the adjoining regions.

According to a letter to the operator of OML 29 by the legal counsel to the Opu Nembe Kingdom, signed by Mr Iniruo Wills, Managing Partner of Ntephe Smith and Wills, the spill has adversely impacted the people who depend on the Santa Barbara River.

The letter sighted by a NAN Correspondent was in response to an invitation to a Joint Investigation Visit (JIV) to the spill site to ascertain the cause and volume of the spill.

The oil firm had confirmed the oil spill in a letter Ref: NEPCo/HSE-JIV/2025/04 dated October 5, which proposed a JIV for October 6.

The Nembe communities, in response to the letter, kicked against the October 6 date and opted for October 9.

“We remind you, as you are pretty aware of already, that the Community requires and deserves decent notice to assemble a competent JIV team, some of whom usually come from Lagos, Port Harcourt and/or Yenagoa, to ensure due diligence and avoid or countervail the perennial practice of manipulating the JIV process and suppressing critical information.

“Please note that our clients demand a thorough and competent investigation of this spill, and adequate management (including swift post-spill assessment and remediation).

“Beyond this spill, for the records, we demand on behalf of our clients again for a top-level engagement (Company, Community Technical Team, and Regulators) for a lasting overall framework to put a stop to this unbearable and continual burden,” the letter read in part.