The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has shut a valve in a pipeline in the Niger Delta after a gas leak following an explosion, a community leader told Reuters yesterday.
Militant group, Niger Delta Avengers has claimed it blew up the pipeline.
“At around 4 a.m. we heard the loud noise of an explosion, then a sound like rain so we came out and saw gas gushing out from the NNPC pipeline,but there is no fire there now,” said Nsikak Joshua, a community leader in Ikot-Osute, the site of the blast.
Meanwhile, oil-rich Okpai in Ndokwa east local government area of Delta State, the host community of Agip Independent Power Plant, has decried the alleged abandonment of the shore protection project by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
Emordi lamented that that there was nothing to show for the over 50 years of oil and gas exploitation in the community and the peace the exploration companies enjoyed while operating in the area.
Also a group of youths in Isoko land, Delta State has accused leaders of the petroleum-producing ethnic nationality of using divide and rule tactics in collusion with oil companies to deprive them of their legitimate entitlements and incentives.
The allegation was made by Isoko Progressive Youth Centre (IPYC) in a petition signed by Its president-general, Comrade Anthony A.A. Ogbalor.