Oil pirates?

When the story about the oil spill in Rosario, Cavite broke out last Saturday, the first thing that came to my mind was a recent TV series I was able to watch on HBO. The TV documentary called “Vice” featured “oil pirates” reportedly pilfering from pipelines and oil tanker ships in Nigeria.

Entitled “Nigeria”s Oil Pirates: The Curse of Oil,” the TV documentary was produced by “Vice” founder Suroosh Alvi. Before I got to watch this TV feature, I did not know that Nigeria is a major oil producer. As I gathered later on, Nigeria is the 10th most oil-rich nation in the world, with 159 oil fields and 1,481 oil wells in operation.

On Google search, I found out that Nigeria generates more than 14 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) from oil exports. “Those exports account for 98 percent of the country’s export earnings, and close to 83 percent of federal government revenue. Nigeria may have more than 22 billion barrels in proven reserves, according to the United States Energy Information Administration.”

In this TV documentary, the experience of a fish and crop farmer by the name of Elder Friday Akpan was the take-off point of the feature story. From 2004 to 2006, Akpan lost his fish farm and livelihood because of the oil spills that cascaded down to his community from the nearby refinery of Royal Dutch Shell.

Akpan sued Shell before its headquarters at The Hague. But it was only in 2013 when The Hague court ruled in his favor. The Royal Dutch Shell was found liable for not better protecting its pipelines from vandals, which resulted in the contamination of Akpan’s fish farm. Out of the five cases of oil pollution in Nigeria that were filed before the Dutch courts, only Akpan’s case was upheld and he received compensation.

In its defense, Shell claimed that majority of the environmental impact from oil spills in the Niger Delta was a result of “oil pirates” tapping its pipelines illegally and running small-scale “bush refineries” to convert the oil to kerosene.

But the affected communities in Niger Delta argued that “bush refineries” were just a drop in the bucket in the problems of oil refineries like Shell’s operating in Nigeria.

They advocated that the oil companies and the federal government of Nigeria should engage the communities traversed by the pipelines.

The “Vice” TV crew was able to penetrate one of the illegal “bush refineries” where they were shown the crude and improvised refining methods. And being engaged in illegal operations, the “oil pirates” were armed to the teeth.

For them to effectively guard against the “oil pirates,” the Nigerian community leaders engaged their government to work together to protect the oil pipelines and demanded payment for residents for their services. ”Justice demands where you take this wealth, return some to the people,” they told Shell and the other oil firms.

The Nigerian situation is fortunately far off from what is happening in the Philippines. We are much dependent on imported crude oil which we mostly source from the Middle East. Nonetheless, we lately suffered major oil spills one after the other.

Only last June 23, oil leaked into Pasig River from a depot in Pandacan, Manila and emitted toxic fumes that caused breathing difficulties among residents in the surrounding areas. The “Big Three” oil firms maintain their pipelines in the Pandacan depot.

The British-owned Shell is one of the so-called “Big Three”; the other two are Caltex Philippines and semi-government-owned Petron. Caltex is connected with the US-based Chevron-Texaco, while Petron is 68 percent owned by San Miguel Corp., 15 percent by the Petron retirement fund, and 17 percent by publicly listed shares.

It was not ascertained though if the foul smell reached the nose of President Aquino who lives at the air-conditioned Bahay Pangarap along the Pasig River just across the Malacañang Palace. When the incident took place, the official Palace mouthpieces delegated to the city government of Manila and concerned government agencies to address the situation within their areas of jurisdiction.  

Officials of the Manila Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (MDRRMO), Coast Guard and the police immediately put the situation under control before it could lead to a major disaster.

Department of Energy Jericho Petilla earlier had declared that the decision to move the oil depot out of Pandacan would be decided solely by the city government of Manila as the host of the facility. This was after Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada vowed to relocate the Pandacan oil depot at the soonest possible time.

The Energy chief cautioned though that such a move could have a dramatic impact on the country’s supply of oil and pump prices as well. The “Big Three” have already reduced operations at the site, citing economic and environmental concerns.

The oil leak was traced to a warehouse of Larraine Marketing where tanks of bunker fuel were stored. A pipe connected to a large tank at the warehouse along Old Panaderos Street burst and spilled some 15,000 liters of oil into the Pasig River. Authorities found out later the busted pipe appeared to have been hastily repaired and covered with plastic.

The Laguna Lake Development Authority (LLDA) issued a cease-and-desist order against Larraine Marketing and directed it to pay a fine of at least P10,000 for every day of violation until its pipe and drainage system had been rectified. The Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) subsequently suspended Larraine Marketing’s environmental compliance certificate.

That was how the freak oil leak incident ended. And now we have this latest oil spill traced again to subterranean pipelines, this time of Petron in Cavite.

Petron owned up to the incident wherein some 500,000 liters of diesel fuel were estimated to have spilled into the waters of Cavite. Rosario Mayor Jose Ricafrente has issued a cease-and-desist order suspending the underwater pipeline operations of Petron. Ricafrente said he would seek compensation for the losses sustained by his town due to the oil spill. Petron apologized and promised to compensate the affected communities.

 More worrisome are the reports that the Petron pipelines were discovered to have “leaks.” If these leaks are caused by “paihi” or pilferages on pipelines, these “oil pirates” must not be allowed to get away with their crimes.