From INIOBONG SUNDAY, Uyo
Civil society organisation committed to good governance, poverty alleviation and environmental disaster has alerted the federal government that Seplat Energy Producing Nigeria Unlimited, SEPNU, is still flaring gas in its host community in Ibeno Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom state.
The organisation expressed concern that carbon pollution, environmental degradation and other associated issues of gas flaring have continued to make the Niger Delta region an endangered zone with the population at risk of extinction.
Executive Director of Network for Advancement Programme for Poverty and Disaster Risk Reduction, NAPPDRR, Emem Edoho identified SEPNU as the major culprit.
He regretted that the Nigerian firm, which recently acquired assets of the defunct Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited, MPNU, “is still continuing the tradition of gas flaring that used to characterise MPNU’s activities in and around its host community – Ibeno.”
Speaking in an interview in Uyo yesterday, the civil society advocate disclosed that the discovery followed the painstaking findings of NAPPDRR’s undercover team around SEPLAT’s operational areas after a letter of request under the Freedom of Information, FoI, Act had been forwarded to the company’s management without response.
He said similar letters drawing the attention of regulatory agencies to the outdated practice were also sent to the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, NUPRIC, and the Nigerian Oil Spill Detection and Remediation Agency, NOSDRIA.
“There is the urgent need to end gas flare pollution. It is causing severe environmental degradation and climate change. It is affecting agricultural livelihoods, especially fish farmers because of rising water temperature. Fishes are dying in most fish ponds. Seplat Energy Producing Nigeria Unlimited is denying flaring of gas.
“But our covert environmental investigation right inside Seplat Energy facility at Qua Iboe Terminal, QIT, as at Friday, March 28 at 7:30pm, showed that they are still flaring tonnes of carbon emissions,” he said.
Edoho, who was miffed at the random flaring of gas with the attendant loss of revenue and negative impact on humans, aquatic and environmental ecosystems, lamented that the country had lost about $1.9 billion in revenue due to gas flaring between 2020 and 2024, and impressed it on the federal and state governments to put tougher measures to check the menace.
He recalled that Nigeria had launched the Gas Flare Commercialisation Programme, GFCP, to reduce gas flaring and promote sustainable development.
He, therefore, hoped that “with NUPRC at the helm, the programme which plans to end routine gas flaring by 2030 and contribute to Nigeria’s energy transition journey could be a mirage if the federal government continues to look the other way while gas flaring continues in the region.”
However, the General Manager of Public and Government Affairs at SEPLAT Energy, Mr Ogechukwu Udeagha, during a recent consultative meeting with stakeholders and the Commissioner for Environment and Mineral Resources, Nsikak Ekong, assured of seamless oil exploration activities with the host communities carried along in line with international best practices.
