News -- Community unrest: ChevronTexaco, others shutdown flow stations

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Community unrest: ChevronTexaco, others shutdown flow stations

By Emeka Ugwuanyi
Tuesday, August 3, 2004

Following the incessant community clashes and youths restiveness in the Niger Delta region which climaxed into destruction of oil companies’ facilities and kidnap of the workers, ChevronTexaco, Elf and Dubri oil have shut down their land flow stations.

It was gathered that as a precautionary measure, only a skeletal number of the flow stations will be put into use until the current situation considerably improves.

Energy this week's checks revealed that all ChevronTexaco land flow stations except that of Abiteye station have been closed down for sometime now while Abiteye was just opened mid June, 2004. Other flow stations shut down for the same reason include the Elf Petroleum’s Ukpomami flow station and Dubri Oil’s Gilli-Gilli flow station

CheveronTexaco, it would be recalled has for over one year now been producing at a shortfall of 140 barrels of oil per day due to shut-in following threatening upheavals in the region.

Although it planned to recommence production from the shutdown facilities last month, the renewed crisis in the region which just subsided, made the company to retreat into its shell. As at press time, efforts to reach Elf and Dubri Oil management for comment was fruitless.

Community unrest in the Niger Delta has cost the government much in material and human resources. In 2003 alone, it cost the Federal Government hundreds of billions of dollars. Therefore, government has put in place some measures to reduce the level of crisis in the region.

Just recently there was a stakeholders conference in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

The conference was aimed at involving the people of the Niger Delta in oil and gas activities. It was decided that they (Niger Deltan communities) should be involved in plans and projects. It was believed that such involvement will give them a sense of ownership of oil exploration and production activities in the region and expected to reduce community clashes and attack on oil facilities.

Other measures include capacity building in the region which is expected to be achieved by empowering the youths and adults through provision of employment and training in skills acquisition to make them employable.

However, the Coordinator of Ijaw Monitoring Group, a human rights activist and environmentalist, Comrade Joseph Evah, had told our reporter that government's claims on addressing the problems of the Niger Delta people is mere lip service.

According to him, government is just playing politics with the region as it has no iota of commitment to improving the lots of their people. Government and its joint venture oil companies every year mention huge amount of money as their budget for community development of their host communities of Niger Delta yet none sees the investment in practical terms or the impact in the lives of the people.