NEWSFLASH: Local African tribe reported to be glowing
in the dark after smoking Nigerian hash.
Posted on 02/25/2003 11:26:32 AM PST by anotherview
Feb. 25, 2003
Nigeria reports unexplained loss of nuclear material
Nigeria has asked the global nuclear agency's help tracking down radioactive material that it says disappeared from the West African nation's oil industry.
"We have ... informed the International Atomic Energy Agency in case somebody stole it and wants to take it outside Nigeria," Shams Elegba, head of Nigeria's nuclear regulatory body, told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
Elegba gave no further details of the missing material or the circumstances behind its loss.
But he said his agency was working hard to recover it, and had asked the global energy agency for assistance.
Nigeria alerted the public in a broadcast statement last week that an unidentified oil company had reported the loss of the radioactive material used in its operations in the southern Niger Delta oil region.
It urged caution on the part of anyone who may have come in contact with the material, saying nausea or vomiting might be signs of radioactive poisoning.
It was not clear what function the missing material played in oil production. Radioactive material used in the oil industry includes cesium-137, used in rock-surveying equipment and other devices.
Severe burns, and even death, can result from handling an industrial source of cesium-137, a US Environmental Protection Agency fact sheet cautions.
Nigerian authorities are worried the material could fall into the hands of people who might use it for purposes that could threaten public safety and have put all the security agencies on the alert, Elegba said.
Nigeria is the world's sixth-largest oil exporter, and nearly all of the oil comes from the Niger Delta. But it has no known nuclear program.
Multinational oil companies' facilities in the delta are the object of frequent attacks, by saboteurs and by thieves. Residents of the impoverished southeastern delta accuse the companies of polluting the land and returning little of their profits to the area.
It's actually used for well logging. After the well bore is drilled, a series of instruments are lowered into the bore to determine if there are sufficient hydrocarbons present and where they are to justify finishing the well for production (adding steel casing to the bore, "perfing" the pipe at the pay zones and adding a pump/tank/collection equipment). Two of the tests involve radioactive materials.
'sok, his full name is Al Quaholic..
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