Abandoned Pipelines: Why it'll Worsen Nigeria's Climate Change Crisis

Abandoned pipelines dot the coastal areas of Nigeria. Would this enable people adapt to climate change in the next few years?

James Edema sits on a bench in front of his bungalow, staring into the distance, sadness on his face, on this early June morning near Warri, Delta State. Around him, polluted water flows past, with an oily smell coming from it.

“An abandoned pipelines caused this,” Edema says, waving at the water. “It got burst. It’s an old pipeline, rusty and rickety. The oil poured into our farms. It destroyed all the crop – cassava, okra, tomatoes. You just need to take a tour to understand the magnitude of the environmental abuse. Here  used to be green, you could go to farm or fish. We used to have very impressive harvests. You would spend just an hour in the water and you have a lot of fish. Now, nothing. How do I cope with this situation?”

As multinational oil companies scale down their operations in Nigeria, the issue of abandoned pipelines comes to focus, because if they are not taken care of, they could burst in the future, making the people find it difficult to adapt as climate change bites hard.

To prevent such a nasty situation, oil firms operating in Nigeria’s oil-rich but restive Niger Delta region have been called upon to change all the oil pipeline infrastructure that have lived above 25 years of age.

Mr Franklin Magada, Executive Director, Niger Delta Eco Monitors, made the call in a statement to EnviroNews, adding that abandoned oil pipelines and oil wells should be properly decommissioned, “in order not to cause environmental havoc.”

In 2012, according to Reuters, an oil spill at an Exxon Mobil’s shut pipeline spread at least 20 miles from its source, coating waters used by fishermen in a film of sludge. Mark Ward, the managing director of Exxon Mobil’s local unit, said a cleanup had been mobilized, and he apologized to affected communities for the spill. Exxon had shut the pipeline off the coast of Akwa Ibom state after an oil leak.

“This is the worst spill in this community since Exxon started its operations in the area,” Edet Asuquo, 40, a fisherman in the Mkpanak community, told Reuters. In some marshy areas, plants were poking out of the slick, not yet dead but blackened by the oil.

Scene after a pieline explosion at Abule Egba, Lagos, Credit:Nairaland

In a paper titled Analysis of Oil Pipeline Failures in the Oil and Gas Industries in the Niger Delta States, C.H. Achebe, U.C. Nneke, and O.E. Anisiji said reasons for abandoned pipelines include aging, corrosion, mechanical failures, and abandonment.

“According to the Gas and Oil Pipeline Standards (GOST) of Nigeria, the standard lifetime of a pipeline is 33 years but this research findings revealed that 42% of failures were mechanically induced, 18% by corrosion," they said.

Unfortunately, when oil companies abandon these pipelines, they play a negative role in people being able to adapt to climate change, apart from exposing the pipelines to vandals.

A vandalized pipeline, Credit: The Punch

The IPCC defined adaptation as adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderate harm or exploits beneficial opportunities. Similarly, Mitchell and Tanner (2006) defined adaptation as an understanding of how individuals, groups and natural systems can prepare for and respond to changes in climate or their environment. According to them, it is crucial to reducing vulnerability to climate change. While mitigation tackles the causes of climate change, they said, adaptation tackles the effects of the phenomenon. Documentations on the Nigerian coast in the past concentrate on the environmental and climatic transformation, while pointing out mitigation measures. So far, there is no existing attempt toward making the populace adapt to climate change and other environmental changes in Niger Delta. This could hamper their capacity in case abandoned pipelines cause oil spills and other environmental damage in the future.

Climate change is real along the Nigerian coastal front, because the flaring of gas has been practiced for over four decades. About 123 flaring sites abound in the region (Energetic Solution Conference, 2004), making Nigeria one of the highest emitters of green house gases in Africa. Some 45.8 billion kilowatts of heat are discharged into the atmosphere from flaring so much gas every day (Agbola and Olurin, 2003). Gas flaring has raised temperatures and rendered large areas uninhabitable. 

According to Etinosa Uyigue and Matthew Agho in their article titled Coping with Climate Change and Environmental Degradation in the Niger Delta of Southern Nigeria,  about 102.3 (81.7%) million cubic meters were flared while only 2.6 million cubic meters were used as fuel by oil producing companies. “The Niger Delta environment is continually degraded by frequent oil spills. Seismic blasts and the discharge of untreated effluents directly into water bodies,” they said.

Picture of a pipeline explosion, Credit: Channels TV

Under this situation, problems from abandoned pipelines could ensue after Big Oil companies scale down operations. With the problem of coastal erosion engendered by climate change, the issue becomes problematic.

Coastal erosion has been reported in the Niger Delta by Okon and Egbon (1999).  Udofa and Fajemirokun (1978) wrote about the rise in sea level along Nigerian coastal water. They did a mechanical analysis of tide data from 1960 – 1970 and reported mean sea level rise to be 0.462m above zero level of the tide gauge. Agbola and Olurin (2003) reported that the World Bank ranked coastal erosion as needing moderate priority attention in the Niger Delta. Also, the Nigerian Environmental Study/Action Team (NEST, 2004) reported that sea-level rise and repeated ocean surges will not only worsen the problems of coastal erosion that are already a menace in the Niger Delta, they would also create challenges of flood and the intrusion of sea-water into fresh water sources and ecosystems, overwhelming  such stabilizing factors as mangrove, and affecting food production, fisheries and general livelihoods,  Along with having to cope with the challenges caused by abandoned pipelines, it could tax the fragile energies of an already embattled people.

In a 2014 paper published in Scrip.org, Ikechukwu O. Agbagwa and  Benjamin C. Ndukwu observed that the pipelines traversed most lowland/freshwater swamp and mangrove forests, and barrier islands with approximately 4,950,000 m2 (equivalent of 495 hectares) of forest cleared and 9,642,000 trees killed to realize the pipelines. A total of 219 plant species in 66 families and 125 different fauna species from 64 families were recorded in these areas.

“Three out of the 4 recorded species of Meliaceae were threatened based on IUCN Conservation Status. Also based on IUCN Conservation Status, 20 mammals, including Pan troglodytes, Cercopithecus erythrogaster and Trichechus senegalensis, 7 birds, 2 reptiles and 1 amphibian were within threatened group. The results showed that the study area had witnessed colossal loss of biodiversity due to habitat displacement, forest fragmentation and deforestation, and escalated exploitation of species. The study identified the most affected biodiversity, and proffered measures to mitigate such occurrences,” Agbagwu and Ndukwu wrote. With added challenges of oil spills from abandoned pipelines, the situation could become desperate.

Pipelines running through a Nigerian community,Credit: MetroNewsNG

One of the most important environmental problem facing the Niger Delta is coastal erosion, a situation caused by climate change. In some places, especially in Forcados, the ocean gobbles up oil wells. The phenomenon poses serious problem for the economic activities in the Niger Delta. Observations show that mangrove plants succumb under the effect of coastal erosion. Experts say over 15000 square kilometers of land could be lost by the year 2100 with a one-meter rise in sea level. Calculations have also shown that a 20cm rise in sea level will inundate 3400 km2 of the Nigerian coast-land (Onofeghara, 1990). It is estimated that with a sea level rise of 30cm, about 1 to 2 million people will be affected. 

“In all this, it is predicted that Nigeria will lose about $9 billion as a result of the sea level rise while at least 80% of the people of the Niger Delta will be displaced due to the low level of the region,” Agho and Uyigue said.

In their 2020  article titled Social and Environmental Drivers of Climate Change Vulnerability in the Niger Delta region, Authority Benson of the Niger Delta University said that the Niger Delta region of Nigeria is only three meter above mean sea level and coastline is dynamic in nature, which renders hundreds of coastal communities exposed and vulnerable to climate change risks and hazards. The region, according to them, is faced with seasonal flooding, increase in temperature, high precipitation, erosion, river salinization, ocean surges and other negative situations. When the challenge from abandoned pipelines adds to this, things could become even more complex.

“Lack of empirical baseline data on climate change, inadequate enforcement of environmental laws, insignificant state fiscal budget on climate change, lack of political will and low interest of political leadership, absence of state policies aimed to enhance climate change adaptation and mitigation, persistent cases of oil spills and gas flaring by multinational oil companies, low public awareness and inadequate technical capacity were identified and analyzed as multidimensional factors militating against local effort for climate change adaptation and mitigation in the Niger Delta region,” Benson said.

Pipelines through Utorogu, Credit: George Osodi

With trouble from abandoned pipelines, water bodies polluted with oil will affect the amount of dissolved oxygen in the water, which consequently will impact the lives of aquatic plants and animals. According to experts, oil spreads over the water surface preventing contact with atmospheric oxygen. Oil spills occur with high frequency in the region. Records revealed that between 1976 to 1990, the region experienced 2,676 cases of oil spills (Civil Liberties Organization report, 1996) and an annual average spills in Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta States are 300 cases. The terrible effects  of these events on the farmlands, crops, economic trees, creeks, lakes, fishing equipment is such that already residents can no longer engage in fishing and other agricultural activities.

Definitely, Nigeria’s climate is likely to experience growing shifts in temperature, rainfall, storms, and sea  levels throughout the twenty-first century, and poor adaptive responses to these shifts could be complicated by potential problems caused by abandoned pipelines. A basic causal relationship exists between climate change and crisis in Nigeria. Through crisis, inadequate responses to the situation could create shortages of resources such as land and water. They could be accompanied by negative secondary impacts, such as more sickness, hunger, and jobless­ness. Poor responses to these, in turn, open the door for more confusion. 

A burst pipeline, Credit: Premium Times

The possibility of crisis over climate change calls for caution, however, particularly as preparations for it haven’t begun. The federal government and Big Oil companies  need to initiate a serious program of research and policy discussion before taking major adaptive steps.

Government and private actors also need to ensure the particular adaptive responses to stem the menace of abandoned pipelines.  Successful adaptation measures include a shut down of the abandoned pipelines. 

Speaking with THISDAY, the immediate past chairman of the Nigerian Society of Petroleum Engineers, Joe Nwakwe, stated that the enforcement of regulations concerning abandoned pipelines should come into play.

“When a well-head is no longer producing, there’re two steps. It is either there’s a TP&A, which is to temporarily plug and abandon it, or you permanently plug and abandon it. The problem was that neither of these happened, so that means that it was still theoretically operational.”

The same thing applies to pipelines. According to the website of Golder, a consulting group on pipeline abandonment, the process could be carried out through the removal and evacuation of the unneeded pipelines, filling the abandoned pipelines with concrete or filling  it with paste.

The failure to deal with abandoned pipelines as the evil consequences of climate change could pose serious challenges in the future.