Environmental Impact of Oil and Gas Exploration and Production on the Socio-economic Life of Niger Delta
CHAPTER ONE
Objectives of Study
The main aim of the research is to evaluate the environmental impact of oil and gas exploration and production (E&P) on the socio-economic life of the inhabitants of Niger Delta. If oil exploitation has been a “curse” or “blessing” to the people in the region. The specific objectives are:
- To investigate pre-oil socio-economic life of the rural area (Niger Delta states);
- To assess the extent to which exploration and production activities in Niger Delta have degraded the environment (Environmental Impact Assessment);
- Analyze how the environmental impacts of oil exploration and production have affected socioeconomic life;
- To compare and contrast the levels of pre-oil and post-oil socio-economic livelihood in rural areas (Niger Delta states); and
- To use the findings of the study of the environmental implications on socio- economic life in the Niger Delta to propose recommendations or suggestions for managing these problems.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction
A number of researchers from academia, oil and gas industry and even other fields in Nigeria and other parts of the world have contributed immensely to provide information concerning the Niger Delta. Their works have brought to light some environmental impacts of exploration and production (E&P) of oil and gas, corporate activities of the International Oil Companies (IOCs) towards the locals, issues between the host communities and the oil companies, Petroleum laws and Acts, impacts of extractives to the Nigerian economy, and all other issues relating to E&P of gas and oil. Inputs from all these researches, together with the studies of organizations such as, United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), World Health Organization (WHO), World Bank, Friends of the Earth, Amnesty International and the Nigeria Federal government have helped to provide the structures and strategic means of handling environmental and social issues regarding oil and gas E&P activities in the country.
Social and Environmental Impacts of E&P Activities in the Niger Delta Region
A lot of works, research, investigations have been conducted to ascertain the causes, effects, and solutions to the problems surrounding the production of oil and Some studies are based on only the problems leading to environmental damage from oil and gas activities. Other works are based on the effect of oil and gas production on peculiar items. Nigeria is no exception of all the effects on the environment as a result of oil and gas E&P. Niger Delta which has been the main host region of oil and gas production in Nigeria may go with the irony of hydrocarbon production being a curse rather than a blessing which the entire country sees. Among all the nine states (Abia, Akwa, Ibom Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo, Imo, Ondo, and Rivers) in the Niger Delta, some communities are noted by their rich culture, others are noted for their occupation and others. Each oil company is located in one community or the other and even an entire state. Fifty-five percent of the 500 fields in the Niger Delta are onshore and the others are shallow water (napims.com, 2018), meaning, with the 193 oil fields currently operating, the majority are close to the land (communities). Due to this, significant communities are faced with peculiar environmental challenges even though other challenges run through all communities.
Oil Spillage and Land Resources Pollution
Niger Delta is known to be a major farming region in Nigeria, contributing remarkably in the agricultural sector of the country. It’s said to be the third producer of oil palm in the world after Indonesia (Kadafa, 2012a). Because of their rich vegetation, most of the indigenous people are engaged in farming as their means of livelihood. Some studies have been focused on how the various environmental challenges have affected the farming activities in the region (Niger Delta). That is. the productivity, fertility of the crops, access to farmlands for transportation of goods to their farms and to the market to sell their products; and others have also been focused on crop diseases.
Before the production of oil, the lands in Niger Delta were used for farming and other activities but the land is now shared with oil companies for crude exploitation. Activities of the oil companies are still affecting the remaining lands left for the people to use. Their farmlands for growing crops are being reduced every day because of oil spillage and other forms of pollution (Hubbert et al., 2014). Investigations on the various environmental problems associated with oil exploration and production in specifically the Niger Delta in Nigeria have revealed that oil spillages have caused immense damage to farmlands, sources of water, mangrove forest, fishing activities, and other marine resources. This has caused people to completely relocate from their communities, no source of proper drinking water, loss of ancestral homes, pollution of fresh water, loss of agricultural land, destruction of fishing grounds and reduction of fish population (Adejoh, 2014; Asoya, 2010; Kadafa et al., 2012).
Kadafa (2012b) has argued that, after all the enormous contribution of the oil companies located in the Niger Delta region of the country and their host communities, the exploration and production of crude oil has also led to the contamination of streams and rivers, forest destruction and loss of biodiversity in the area. Studies have shown that over 50 years’ period of exploration and production activities in the Niger Delta at least 9-13 MMbbl of oil have been spilled.
CHAPTER THREE
MATERIALS AND METHODS
This chapter presents the data gathering and analysis of the research. The various methods and techniques that were used to achieve the set objectives are described below. The work is arranged to capture the socioeconomic history of the Niger Delta and the current state of the socioeconomic life in relation to oil E&P environmental challenges. The Niger Delta region of Nigeria is the study area for this research.
Materials
The study relied mainly on secondary data obtained from past and present studies, governmental and non-governmental institutions and existing literature. The data was obtained from World Bank Reports, United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environmental Protection, Amnesty International, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Niger Delta Development Commission, Department of Petroleum Resources- Nigeria, National Bureau of Statistics-Nigeria, published and unpublished materials, conference and seminar papers, journals, books and the internet.
Methods of Data Collection, Analyses, and Presentation
This research is based mainly on secondary data. The research also adopted comparative study method, descriptive and conceptual approach to analyze all the information generated from the various sources of data. The work is not focused on a peculiar sample size in one community because analyzing the socioeconomic implication of oil and gas on one community and generalizing it for the entire region will be more biased.
The statistical information used was extracted from:
- Official statistics from Nigeria: this comprises of information obtained from government institutions, departments, bureaus and agencies in Nigeria. Such government institution consulted for data during this thesis were Nation Bureau of Statistics, Central Bank of Nigeria, Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, Annual Statistical reports, Niger Delta Development Commission.
- Data from other Organization: World Bank Report, Amnesty International, UNEP Reports, UNDP Report, WHO, Friends of the Earth
- Other sources of information: Kadafa (2012), Ojimba (2011), Osuagwu & Olaifa (2018), Eregha & Irughe (2009), Francis & Sardesai (2008), Society of Petroleum Engineers journals and other journal publications, websites (E.g., www.dw.com), etc.
CHAPTER FOUR
PRE-OIL AND POST-OIL SOCIOECONOMIC LIFE OF THE PEOPLE OF NIGER DELTA
Introduction
The Nigerian economy which is known to today’s generation as oil-driven has evolved from the support of other resources as other economies of the world. The primary sector of an economy includes agriculture, forestry, mining, fishing, and extraction of oil and gas. Nigeria is blessed with all these resources in commercial quantities. However, one thing that supported the country in the years up to the nineteenth century when exploration and production of crude oil began was agriculture. This means before the discovery of oil in Nigeria there was Niger Delta without the E&P activities. These people lived in their region based on the available natural resources excluding oil. After the first oil production in Oloibiri in 1956, there has been a vast change (economically, socially and environmentally) in the country most especially the Niger Delta province which houses most of the oil wells in the country. This section of the research considers the socioeconomic life of the people in Niger Delta before and after the inception of oil and gas exploration and production in the region and explains the activities of E&P as a source of environmental degradation in the Niger Delta.
Pre-oil Niger Delta
Before 1956 when commercial production of crude oil started in Nigeria, the people of the nine states of Niger Delta had an economic life, an environment, and a social life that was enough to support them, their families, the neighboring communities and the nation at large. Every human community is located in a geographical location, with particular ecology and social life.
Every community and even countries have distinct trait from their neighbors, for example, Ghana is to gold whereas Nigeria is to crude oil. In the same vain Niger Delta region was distinguished from the other regions in Nigeria by their peculiar ecological, social and economic parameters.
CHAPTER FIVE
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF OIL AND GAS EXPLORATION AND PRODUCTION AS A SOURCE OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC PROBLEMS IN THE NIGER DELTA
Introduction
The connection between environmental damage and oil and gas E&P activities in the Niger Delta has been established by many researchers and some have also been explained in the previous chapters. The life of the people living in the oil producing communities is affected by the impacts on the environment they live in. This section of the thesis seeks to evaluate how the environmental damages, that have impacted the oil producing communities, have affected their socioeconomic life over the past decades. Over the years, there have been a series of changes and adaptations that have been developed by the people in order to survive in their changing environment. Changes in socio-economic life can be related to all forms of environmental damage which were caused by either the oil companies or the indigenous people or both.
“Without appropriate environmental management initiatives, both the rural and urban poor suffer from the three key dimensions of human poverty-insufficient livelihoods, poor health and vulnerability” (UNDP, 2006).
Environmental Impact on Living Standards
Living standards of a community relate to their level of comfort, wealth, health or material things available to them as a group of people (www.investopedia.com, 2019) (Reference). With the change in environmental conditions as a result of E&P oil and gas activities, there is a direct change in the standard of living of the people in the immediate environment. These impacts encompass basic needs to other relevant factors of life.
Some of the basic needs that have been affected by environmental degradation in the Niger Delta include shelter, water, food, clothing, health, and wellbeing. Food items such as yam, fish, cassava, fruits and plantain that were initially produced in abundance in communities are now imported from elsewhere into the communities as a result of pollution.
In effect, the cheaply sold food items are now expensive which makes it difficult for some people to afford and some are not able to sustain their families. Famine is high in the land since crops do not yield enough. People are not able to afford purchasing food items to feed up to 10% of their families (Okpako, 2014). In Ibeno, Akwa Ibom State, for instance, it is those who are able to afford large boat engines and trawlers that can go into high seas for fishing. The rest buy frozen fish from commercial fishermen and the market price keeps increasing, hence many of the people go without fish (Egbe & Thompson, 2010). The issue of food insecurity in the region boils down to the lack of adequate cleanup and remediation, and failure to address the long term possible effects of oil spillage on farmlands, crop production and food safety (Amnesty International, 2009).
According to Amnesty International (2009) the right of the inhabitant to an adequate standard of living, which include the right to food, has been violated. This is as a result of damage to their main sources of food which are agriculture and fisheries. The people living in the Niger Delta have to drink, cook with, and wash in polluted water; they eat fish contaminated with oil and other toxins if they are lucky enough to still be able to find fish.
In considering the effects of the environmental changes on the standard of living of the people, it must also be realized that the sources of fuel and energy and wood for the indigenous people (i.e., the mangrove forest) have been destroyed (Kadafa, 2012a). The destruction of mangrove forest in Ibeno by oil spillage has led to the loss of their source of energy and fuel and building material (mangrove wood) (Chijioke et al., 2018).
The environmental predicament has created social and economic deprivation such as income inequalities and poverty which is complicating the development situation in the region (Omohimoria et al., 2014); and this has gradually reduced their standard of living (Amnesty International, 2009). Due to the economic stagnation, unemployment and poor quality of life (shortage of essential goods and facilities, and unhealthy environment spreading diseases and malnutrition), agricultural underdevelopment from soil infertility, and poverty has become their way of life. Without proper environmental management, the poor in the urban and rural areas suffer from insufficient livelihoods, poor health, and vulnerability which are the key dimensions of human poverty (UNDP, 2006).
Introduction
The first part of this chapter summarizes the main conclusions derived from the study and the second part presents the recommendations derived from the findings of the research. As crude oil exploitation cannot be stopped outright, there is the need to talk for the future generation as they are not available to tell of the kind of environment they want. Niger Delta has earned huge revenues for the country since 1958 from its abundant crude oil resources. Despite the amount of revenue generated from the region, environmental pollution continues to swallow the region with it numerous direct and indirect impacts.
Conclusions
Based on the research discussion, the following conclusions were made. Before commercial oil production in Niger Delta, the people in the region lived a special life that was predicted on the healthy environment surrounding them. Most of their life style, from social to economic, was linked to one or more objects in the environment. However, after oil production began, life continues, but this socioeconomic life seems to differ from what it used to be before oil production. From the research, it has been noted that there is a clear difference between the pre-oil socioeconomic life and the post-oil socioeconomic life of the Niger Delta people.
It has been noted that some activities arising from the E&P operations of crude oil in the region has caused immense environmental damage to the region, most especially to the oil-producing communities. These environmental challenges included oil spillage, gas flaring, canalization, inappropriate waste management and leakages from oil pipelines, depletion of forest reserve, among others. However, these environmental challenges come about by the action of the oil companies and other times by local militants. The extent to which the environmental pollution has degraded the environment include contamination of aquatic habitats leading to the death of aquatic life, pollution of drinking water, pollution of air by flares and other chemicals, deforestation and destruction of farmlands, depletion of the Niger Delta mangrove forest, etc.
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