Environmental Impact of the Oil Industry
which banned gas flaring. Here, it was required that by April 1st all the oil companies should have developed plans for gas re-injection projects.
Still the oil companies ignored the law, instead lobbying for a partial exemption which was finally decreed in 1985, under the 1979 act (the democratic, albeit hopelessly corrupt, Shagari government having been overthrown by Major General Muhammadu Buhari on the 31st December 1993). This military decree enabled the following associated gas flaring activities:
- Flaring of up to 25% of all associated gas;
- Flaring of gas with more than 15% impurities, which makes it unsuitable for industrial purposes;
- Flaring during the time that technical problems preclude the utilisation of the gas; and
- Flaring where the volume of gas is less than 50 thousand Standard Cubic Feet (SCF).
Obviously this allows a very wide interpretation and, in any event, monitoring by government agency is non-existent. The oil companies can do what they like. And what they like, is to ignore the regulations so that Nigeria flares more gas than any other country. Thanks to successful lobbying the oil companies can today flare as much gas as they like by obtaining an exemption certificate and by paying a derisory fine for each cubic metre flared.
Flaring of Natural Gas as % of Gross Production in 1991, World Bank report Defining an Environmental Development Strategy for the Niger Delta – 1995.
| Nigeria | 76 | % |
| Saudi Arabia | 20 | % |
| Iran | 19 | % |
| Mexico | 5 | % |
| Britain | 4.3 | % |
| Algeria | 4 | % |
| Ex-USSR | 1.5 | % |
| USA | 0.6 | % |
| The Netherlands | 0 | % |
15.3 THE ACTUAL ADVERSE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF THE OIL INDUSTRY
15.3.1 UNDERSTANDING THE IMPACT THROUGH LOGICAL ASSESSMENT
In order to understand the significance of the actual adverse impact that the oil industry has upon the environment of the Niger Delta, it is important to be able to make an unemotional and objective analysis of the environment, both locally and globally. Following scientific investigation of real conditions, this analysis requires three sequential intellectual exercises which logically lead from one from to the other. At the end of each exercise a thorough understanding of the following conditions will be achieved, as follows:
165
