Total Energies Egina FPSO spills about 3,000 barrels of crude – NOSDRA

Nathan Tamarapreye, Yenagoa

The National Oil Spills Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), says the Nov 15 spill from the Egina Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel, discharged 3,000 barrels of crude oil.

The Egina FPSO located 130 kilometres off the Atlantic coastline and operated by TotalEnergies has a capacity to produce 200,000 barrels of crude daily and can store 2.3 million barrels on board.

Mr Idris Musa, Director-General at the regulatory agency said on Sunday that a Joint Investigation Visit (JIV) report estimated the volume of leak at 3,000 barrels.

The D-G said that the agency’s response was still ongoing as the leak has been largely contained.

He said that the agency and the operator spared no effort in tackling the pollution to minimise an impact on the environment, a development that kept the spilt crude from reaching the coastline.

He explained that the spills agency deployed high-level personnel and activated the National Oil Spills Contingency Plan (NOSCP) which deployed local and foreign resources and expertise.

“The spill was not a minor one, it was the response strategy that we put in place that resulted to limited impact and we have been tracing and tracking the oil slick and supervising response efforts.

“NOSDRA deployed personnel led by a Director to the site and we have remained on the spill site as well as granting the requisite approvals to hasten the response.

“We have been briefing our supervising ministry on developments and so far the spill has not hit the coastline due to the effectiveness of the spill contingency plan we used,” Musa said.

He explained that the operator of the facility took steps that made the response swift and effective adding that other oil companies under the auspices of Clean Nigeria Associate (CNA) assisted in the response.

He said the incident required a collaborative response of oil industry stakeholders that involved a spill response aircraft, five vessels in the application of 15,000 litres of liquids to clean the waters.