A broken pipe of an oil well located in Egbebiri area of Biseni community, Yenagoa Local Government area, discharging a mixture of crude and gas into the surrounding environment

Yenagoa – The National Oil Spills Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) says the assessment of damages caused by the oil spill from Agip’s Brass Oil Export Terminal is in its final stage.

Dr Idris Musa, the Director of Oil Fields Assessment in NOSDRA, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Yenagoa on Sunday.

Musa said that the damage evaluation would form the basis for recommending compensation for the communities impacted by the spill, which occurred on Dec. 3, 2013.

“The damage assessment is nearing completion; it takes some time, and we need to be meticulous about it to ensure that every detail is captured.

“This is because you cannot afford to make mistakes and come back again; as soon as the damage assessment is concluded, the impacted communities would be considered for compensation,” he said.

According to him, the agency has been liaising with officials of Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC) and the affected communities, to ensure accurate evaluation of the spill.

It will be recalled that the oil leak from the NAOC’s export terminal discharged some volume of crude into the Atlantic.

The spill reportedly contaminated the waters and spread to the coastline the next day, forcing fishermen along the coast to pull out of the waters.

Musa said that NOSDRA officials supervised the clean-up of the coastline to ensure that the exercise met the set standard, adding that this was followed by the damage assessment.

The director explained that the remediation of the spill sites mapped out by the agency had reached 70 per cent completion.

He said that the oil spill agency had developed a disaster risk reduction plan which integrated oil communities in spill management.

According to him, the plan is aimed at reducing to barest minimum, spill incidents caused by sabotage, and ensuring an environment free from oil spills.

– NAN