Oil giants, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), has explained why the inferno at its Yorla-13 Well Head in Kpean, an Ogoni community in Rivers State, raged for three months before it was recently put out.
Its External Affairs Director, Mrs Diezeani Alison-Madueke, described the fire as stubborn and defiant of all remediation efforts.
This, she stressed, compelled the company to invite international well fire specialists, Boots and Coots, from America after all efforts by similar organisations within the vicinity failed.
She told journalists in Port Harcourt that the arrival of the American team, which worked in collaboration with the company�s technical crew, changed the situation, as they were able to fabricate special tools used to put out the fire, adding that the firm considered the option of disabling the well before applying the effort of the combined teams of local and foreign well fire experts to put out the fire.
The Shell director commended the youths, chiefs and elders of Kpean community and the Rivers State government for their patience and support while the company battled the fire.
“SPDC expresses appreciation to individuals and organisations for their support in the exercise, especially the Rivers State government, various security agencies, the Ogoni Youth Council as well as the Kpean community chiefs and elders,” she said.
She, however, said the company had started well-securing activities, following which environmental restoration of the site would be carried out.
Shell withdrew from Ogoniland in 1993 and has not been able to secure its abandoned oil wells, a situation that vandals had exploited to put the area under serious environmental disaster.