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Two Weeks After It Blew, an Oil Well in Nigeria Is Still Spewing

Two Weeks After It Blew, an Oil Well in Nigeria Is Still Spewing

An oil and gas well in southern Nigeria is still spewing its contents at least 14 days after it first blew, causing growing anxiety among the local communities that rely on the surrounding land and waterways.

The world’s oil and gas markets have been all but unaffected by the incident because the well in question had been capped and wasn’t producing. But community leaders are increasingly worried about its impact on people’s livelihoods.

The rupture on the oil field that’s located in mangrove forests has been releasing crude into the surrounding river, and fumes into the air, since at least Nov. 5. It is operated by independent producer Aiteo Eastern E&P Co. While there have been no estimates so far for the size of the leak, Aiteo said it was a spill “of an extremely high order” in a statement on Nov. 10.

For more on this story:
Nov. 10: Nigeria Crude Producer Reports Oil Spill in South of Country (1)
Nov. 11: Nigeria Says Foreign Experts Needed to Plug Oil Spill in Delta

Aiteo acquired the license from a consortium of oil majors headed by Royal Dutch Shell Plc in 2015. The sale price of $2.4 billion for the permit and a pipeline is the largest paid so far by Nigerian companies acquiring assets from their international counterparts. Spills, particularly from pipelines, are common in Africa’s largest oil producer.

Experts are now ready to start the work of sealing the well so that the cause and scale of the leak can be determined, Idris Musa, director general of Nigeria’s National Oil Spill Detection and Reponse Agency, said by text message. A spokesman for Aiteo declined to comment.

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