Nigeria's NNPC contains fire at storage facility

The Nigerian State Oil Company NNPC said that a fire in a crude oil storage barge on its Cawthorne Channel site, located along the coast of Rivers State, had been put out with no injuries.

Olufemi Soneye, NNPC's spokesperson, said in a late-night statement on Thursday that the fire started around 1310 GMT Wednesday and spread quickly to other barges.

Soneye stated that the incident did not affect operations at the flowstation.

Nigeria's oil spillage agency announced that the recovery of oil from a Shell spill reported on 17 February will begin this Friday.

After a joint investigation, the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency said that the cause of the spill at Kolo Creek, in the nearby Bayelsa State, is unknown because the suspected leak point was submerged.

NOSDRA spokesperson Chukwuemeka Woke stated that Shell had built a watertight enclosure known as a "coffer dam" to allow access to pipeline and the spill site was contained.

(source: Reuters)