An environmentalist, Abdullahi Aremu, has identified oil spillage and gas flaring as factors responsible for severe environmental damages, loss of plants, animals and human lives in the country.
Aremu, the Director-General, Advocacy for Environmental and Sanitation Integrity, an NGO, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Monday.
According to him, some of these factors, over the years, are responsible for the loss of revenue to both the oil producing companies and the Federal Government.
“Petroleum exploration, exploitation, production, storage, distribution and transportation activities affect the environment in a conspicuously negative manner.
“Vegetation are removed to make way for seismic lines and sites.
“ Storage, distribution and transportation of oil and gas using tankers and pipeline network result in some quantities of petroleum products being released into the environment. “
The director-general said oil exploration caused a range of environmental problems, which included contamination of both surface and ground water by benzene, xylene and toluene.
He said others were ethylbenzene, contamination of soil by oil spill and leaks, increased deforestation as well as the economic loss and environmental degradation stemming from gas flaring.
“In order to address the problem of gas flaring, it is necessary to understand why the natural gas is being flared.
“Because oil and natural gas are mixed in every oil deposit, the natural gas called Associated Gas (AG) must be removed from oil before refining, “ Aremu said.
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