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Oil, Gas and Mining: the Bonny Island LNG Project

In Bonny it never becomes night anymore

Gas factory brings pollution instead of prosperity to the Nigeria delta.

In the middle of the nineties the Nigerian island of Bonny still welcomed the arrival of a plant for liquefied gas. But this gas brought nothing but pollution and broken promises to the population. Now they feel like strangers in their own kingdom.

By: Dick Wittenberg

“ P rosperity will bless Bonny”. “God had us in mind”. These were the first words of dr. Hilkiah Igoni when, in the middle of the nineties, he heard that the biggest private investment in Africa would take place in the kingdom of Bonny . The investment would be an industrial complex for liquefied gas, managed by Shell.

Dr. Igoni is one of the notable men of this island situated in the Niger Delta at a distance of 30 km south of the Nigerian oil town of Port Harcourt . He is dressed like a real Bonny man: ‘jumpa’ , bowler hat, walking stick with shining knob, a gold coloured chain on his chest. He is carrying the honourary title ‘warisenibo’ , because of his contributions to the community.

“My God”, he says now. He is shaking his head. “How wrong I was”.

One after the other delegation is crying out its grievances before him: two women groups, two unions of fishermen, the local government, an organisation of young unemployed academics, social organisations. They present themselves at full strength. Together they are a choir that is lamenting the apparent blessing that turned out to be a curse. They complain about impoverishment and oppression, one long litany of falsified expectations and broken promises. Bonny isn’t Bonny anymore.

The fishing village of Siokolo bleakly contrasts with the storage tankers for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), of which it is only seperated by a creek. The persistent drone of a drum summons the men to the shabby community hall, although the sound almost drowns in the beat of tropical rains on the corrugated iron roof. ”In the early days one just had to throw out nets and the fishes would flow in”. The village head, chief Ajalamoniagha Brown, tells his story in the local Ijaw language. “Nowadays it will take sometimes 3 or 4 days before the boat is filled with fish”. In many creeks the fish disappeared due to pollution. The shellfish called ‘periwinkle’ , the oysters, are not found anymore. The coastal waters near the industrial complexes are declared forbidden area for security reasons. We are expelled to the open sea”.

Chief Brown scratches his belly in long movements. “It is more and more hard for us to compete with the imported frozen fish. They say that our fish smells of kerosine. More and more households do not have cassava anymore with their fish stew in the evening. They convert their boat for passenger transport services between the main land and the island. Or they sell firewood, or they fill sacks with sand. Never the government or the companies did anything for us”.

Chief Brown makes a tour through the village that is constructed of refuse wood. No school, no electricity, no water. Everywhere plastic tubs and buckets are placed to collect rainwater. The bottom is covered with blackish sediment. Twice we encounter an armed police patrol. The security of the industries has to be safeguarded.

The chemical complex of NLNG (Nigeria Liquid Natural Gas), built at the initiative of Shell with an interest of 25.6 %, and co-financed by the Dutch export credit agency Gerling NCM, could have been a model project. Financially and technically it actually is a model project. The general director of NLNG, Andrew Jamieson, talks about the “fastest growing liquid gas project in history”. The installation that started operations in 1999 has to produce 22 million tons of gas per year in two or three year’s time. By then an amount of US$ 11 - 12 billion will have been invested in the project.

NLNG can be proud too of its impacts on the national economy and the global environment. The company helps to utilize the enormous Nigerian gas reserves, which remained unused until recently and exceed the oil reserves by far. It also contributes to fight the greenhouse effect.

The swamp areas of the oil-rich Niger Delta are still infested with fiery flares that burn the unwanted gas that emerges as a by-product of the oil exploitation. The flaring continues for 24 houres a day at a temperature of 13.000 Celsius. In many communities the night never comes and the rainfall is always acid. These torches are the biggest single source of CO-2 emissions in the world, and hence responsible for the degradation of the ozone layer. One fifth of all the gas burnt into the atmosphere is accounted for by Nigeria . Before the end of 2010 this has to stop, also due to NLNG. “Useless” gas is processed into fuel.

The wholesome impact of the company is not noticeable at the hosting island. Five centuries ago Bonny was contacted for the first time by the outside world because of the arrival the Portugese. Starting from this mud clod in the Atlantic Ocean the lower part of Nigeria was converted to Christianity. Until today the island - covering 450 km2 - kept its traditional structure. With a king (Edward Asimi William Dappa Pepple III Perekule XI, ‘ amanyabo’ of Greater Bonny), and chiefs that are leaders of family clans, called “Houses”. Seventy percent of the estimated 70.000 indigenous inhabitants are depending of old upon fisheries.

Numerous creeks and small rivers cut through this archipelago of swamps and tropical rainforests. Mangrove trees, whose roots stand in the heavy mud like huge legs of spiders, dependent on ebb and flow, fence off the embankments.

T he serene Bonny feels overwhelmed by the arrival of NLNG. No one prepared the population for the invasion of adventurers from other parts of the country hunting for work or trade related to the construction of the installations. Forty-, fifty-, sixty thousand, no one knows how many people arrived. Day labourers have built provisional villages close to the futuristic NLNG-complex, carrying names like Monkey Village or Mango Village . Resorts for real man where prostitution is flourishing and liquor abundantly flows.

Indigenous inhabitants consider themselves strangers in their own kingdom. Water supply, education and healthcare, the feeble social services have collapsed because of the influx. The means of subsistence, the culture and the environment experience severe stress. The numerous security forces that came to the island in the wake of NLNG, create an atmosphere of represssion and intimidation. The mobile police units are known as ‘kill-and-go’ .

“We are occupied territory”, says dr. T Allison, chairman of the committee that is ordained by the king to develop the island, the Bonny Kingdom Development Committee. “We are powerless”.

This is contrary to agreements. In all official documents the company promised support for the population, protection of the environment and extensive consultations. Even in June 2000 general director Jamieson signed an agreement that provided for the construction of a road and the supply of water and electricity to the two towns of the island, Bonny-Town and New Finima. To be delivered before 2003.

The electricity supply is slowly emerging. However, the construction activities for the road have halted. The water supply still has to be waited for. In the meantime trucks move around to deliver water. Irregularly and too little, according to the inhabitants. On top of that, the water is murky and it smells.

This is not the purified water that splashes from the taps in the special village for the thousands of NLNG-employees, according to the few notable men that visited that place. In the NLNG-village, behind high fences and barbed wire, there is never any shortage of electricity. They have their own shopping complex, swimming pool, and golf club. “Little London ” this enclave of abundance is called in Bonny.

Shell’s company magazine Shell Venster wrote in April about the 90 million naira, about half a million Euro, that NLNG injected in the economy of the island via the construction activities, and about the thousands of jobs for the local population. But the lion’s share of the money is ending up with the contractors and suppliers from outside Bonny, according to the indigenous people. The outsiders also divide the jobs. The original population of Bonny is neglected.

A rowing boat with an outboard engine takes nearly half an hour from Bonny-Town to the hamlet of Oputunbie. The trip passes along mangrove graveyards; the wood is sallow of death. Environmental reports confirm that the deforestation of the island accelerated substantially since the arrival of NLNG.

Oputunbie is a remote place where the local company SIA Resources dumps industrial waste of NLNG at night. Day labourers at the spot who burn the piles of waste and flatten them tell this. They work without gloves or masks. The water of the creeks is licking the edges of the dump.

This illegal dump was already disclosed some years ago by the Mangrove Forest Conservation Society of Nigeria (MFCSN), a local organisation, without a computer, without a car, operating with the commitment and voluntary contributions of an administrator of a hospital, a reverend and the other board members. They receive limited financial support of the Dutch environmental organisation Both ENDS.

After that disclosure, the secretary of the organisation, reverend Ibawari Hector Pepple, reports having received death threats. The edition of the regional newspaper ‘The Tide’ , that carried an article on the illegal dump, was completely bought up. By NLNG, according to the reverend.

According to the president of the MFCSN, Akie Hart, these actions are not just incidents. He tells about dumpings of toxic waste in the rainforest of Bonny by the construction group TSKJ, the principal construction contractor of NLNG. TSKJ admitted those dumpings, but added that the state government had agreed. The mangrove conservationists then started a court case against the construction group. Hart complains that for several times already he had to look for a new lawyer, because lawyers were ‘bought out’. He said that NLNG also made a lucrative ‘offer for a contract’ to his organisation.

T he magazine Shell Venster wrote in April cheeringly that NLNG not only respects Nigerian environmental laws in Bonny, but also conforms to international norms. No second rate treatment for Nigeria . International creditors like the Dutch Gerling NCM demand that, next to the likely environmental impacts, also the social impacts are taken stock of, and diminished or compensated. But, according to Hart, these are empty guarantees as long as the control on compliance is taken care of by a regional environmental department that depends for its transport on NLNG and receives a brown envelope after each inspection. NLNG started the last two expansions while the Nigerian ministry of environment still did not yet issue permission, says Hart.

Environmental Resources Management, a British firm that was hired by creditors to review the latest expansion of NLNG, warns in an interim report for serious risks. The firm writes that NLNG underestimates the scale of deforestation and damage to nature. If nothing is done about this, the fishing grounds upon which most indigenous people depend are in jeopardy. If also the last expansion of NLNG in a couple of years will be finished, there will be no work anymore for very many people and pauperisation is due.

In the interim report the British firm writes that NLNG is doing far too little to socially support the population, despite self-help projects and a micro-credit programme, who by the way are ridiculed by the local population. NLNG should not have the illusion, according to Environmental Resources Management, that it “adequately manages the social risks of the project”. The final report has not been disclosed to the public.

So far protests on Bonny always have been peaceful. But the patience will be exhausted, says Kalade Jene, leader of the most radical Bonny Indigenous Guide. “The dialogue cannot last for ever”. His organistion was the first to choose for confrontation by occupying an oil collection station.

The idyllic Bonny could follow the same path as the east of the Niger Delta, where violent incidents are daily routine and the oil companies operate in a war zone, says Akie Hart of the Mangrove Society. “Unless NLNG tackles environmental management and social support just as firmly as the expansion of this mega-project.”

Hart’s talk is easy, according to Andrew Jamieson, general director of NLNG. The erection of an industrial complex for liquid gas on Bonny is far easier than the support of the population with water, electricity and a new road. “Not because of lack of willingness of NLNG. Yes, such an industrial settlement in a small community of course always has far reaching effects. One cannot take away all negative side effects. But I think that, considering everything, the population in the long run will benefit”.

About the illegal waste dumpings, says Jamieson, he never has heard of it. And that environmental damage and social tragedy can be a threat to the project, he is fully aware. “That is why we are determined to do it right”.

The population of Bonny still has to see it with its own eyes.

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