Angry youths shut down SPDC oil wells in Bayelsa

MIFFED by alleged total neglect and refusal to live up to their social responsibility, angry youths and residents of Tanbiri II community, Biseni, in Yenagoa Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, disrupted oil production at Adibawa oil field operated by Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), and shut down two oil wells.

Sunday Tribune gathered that the oil wells –  Adibawa well 4 and Adibawa well 10 – feeding the Adibawa flow station were shut down by the protesters, who demanded power supply from the nearby oil facility.

A visit to the community showed hundreds of residents, comprising youths, women and elders, had blocked the access road to the shut oil wells, as they sang solidarity songs accompanied by rhythms from local musical instruments.

President of the youths in Biseni community, Mr Oyeso Atena, said they were angry over the failure of SPDC to link the community to a power plant located at Adibawa flow station, despite several meetings.

“We took the step as a last resort following several talks. The oil firm had given us hope, but they later backed out by telling us that the transmission line to our community is not strong enough and cannot carry the power.

“We have several oil wells here and merely shutting two of them have put the entire Adibawa flow station out of action, and that shows that without the oil wells, the flow station cannot work, and all we ask is that they give us electricity from that facility.

“We are not asking for too much for a company that has operated here since 1972 and there is no history of hostage taking, no attack on oil workers, and no incident of vandalism of facilities.

“Our expectation is that they reciprocate our peaceful disposition and not take our peaceful nature for weakness. We have vowed to remain here until they respond to us,” he said.

When contacted, spokesman of the Joint Task Force deployed to protect oil facilities in the Niger Delta region said he had no information on the incident, and promised to verify the claim and respond as appropriate.

Efforts to reach the spokesman of the SPDC, Mr Joseph Obari proved abortive.

Responding to the incident, Environmental Right Activist, Friends of the Earth (ERAFoeN), Comrade Morris Alagoa, said it was unthinkable that SPDC would operate in a community, occupy a sizeable residential quarters with uninterrupted power and resign their host to total darkness for years.

According to him, “it is barbaric, worrisome, condemnable and unacceptable and these misgivings are the cause of conflicts and crisis between oil multinationals and their host communities in the Niger Delta region.”

Alagoa reasoned that oil multinationals should stop stirring crisis in their operation areas, even as he noted that issues in Biseni were avoidable by extending power to the communities, noting that the excuse that the transmission line was not strong to carry power, was not tenable.

He, however, said beyond the power issue, “the communities suffered other adverse effects from the oil company’s operations, socially, economically and healthwise, yet they did not disrupt their operation,” even as he posited that it was to the company’s advantage to do the needful.

To this end, he noted that oil companies had corporate social responsibility services that they must render to their host, and doing that would even spur youths to go all out to protect their facilities.