Explosion at Nigerian illegal oil refinery kills over 100

Reuters ^ | 4/23/22 | Tife Owolabi

[Libloather]

YENAGAO, Nigeria (Reuters) - More than 100 people were killed overnight in an explosion at an illegal oil refining depot on the border of Nigeria’s Rivers and Imo states, a local government official and an environmental group said on Saturday.

“The fire outbreak occurred at an illegal bunkering site and it affected over 100 people who were burnt beyond recognition,” the state commissioner for petroleum resources, Goodluck Opiah, said.

The bunkering site was in the Ohaji-Egbema Local Government Area of Imo state in the Abaezi forest that straddles the border of the two states.

Unemployment and poverty in the oil-producing Niger Delta have made illegal crude refining an attractive business but with deadly consequences. Crude oil is tapped from a web of pipelines owned by major oil companies and refined into products in makeshift tanks.

The hazardous process has led to many fatal accidents and has polluted a region already blighted by oil spills in farmland, creeks and lagoons.

The Youths and Environmental Advocacy Centre said several vehicles that were in a queue to buy illegal fuel were burnt in the explosion.

[Libloather]

Big bang. Almost heard it from here.

[Vigilanteman]

Is refining the oil illegal? Or stealing it from somebody else’s pipeline?

[neverevergiveup]

They have natural respources and should not have to resort to this. Probably the oil companies that are drilling there are being extorted by the Nigerian government, but the locals don't benefit from the oil windfall - and they get displaced from land they used to live off of.

[catnipman]

you can see why these backwoods “refineries” are both dangerous and illegal:

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=%22illegal%20refineries%22&first=1&tsc=ImageHoverTitle

[fella]

Muck raker makes it sound like the refinery is on the bank of 2 rivers.

Could that be a concern for environmentalists?

What about BLM?

[unread]

The democratic party would pay them well to cook meth instead.. Looks like it would be less dangerous and would have a few benefits on the side......for a while, anyway..

[zeestephen]

Oil and gasoline theft is endemic in Nigeria.

When a mob of looters shows up, you can be sure that people are going to get blown up or incinerated.

[Col Frank Slade]

I got a phone call once asking to invest in a Nigerian oil refinery.

LOL

[mythenjoseph]

HA! The article states “an area already BLIGHTED by oil spills” then further down in the article “spills caused by illegal tapping of Oil companies pipelines! I took the blighted sentence as a dig against those big and awful Oil companies trying to obtain a product that makes the world go “round...then to see the locals ruin it themselves.