Illegal oil refinery outbursts in Nigeria:
In the Rivers state of Nigeria there was an outburst at an illegal oil refinery which led to the death of 100 people including civilians and workers.
The youth and Environmental advocacy center stated that several tankers vehicles waiting in cue to buy illegal oil were burn in explosion.
The news said that The refinery was in a bunker where the blast took off at first, burning 100 people beyond recognition as stated by the state’s commissioner of petroleum resources “Goodluck Opiah”.
Unemployment and poverty the reason for horrific accident?
The reason for such fatal accident is the unsafe way of refining the oil. Due to the poverty and lack of employment Crude oil extracting business has become an attraction for local people.
The extraction is done using underground pipelines of crude oil is going towards the major oil refineries and pipelines are tapped illegally.
Crude oil is Then tanked and processed which helps locals earn butter and bread for their families. This way of extraction has lead to many accidents in past as well.
What’s ahead…
The unemployed youth knows this process to be dangerous but still go for it, in October past year 25 people were killed in a similar situation. The illegal oil refinery owner is at large at the moment and declared as wanted.
The government officials estimated that these illegal refineries are spread all over Nigeria and take up to 10% of production for legal companies which make at least 2,00,000 barrels of oil per day.
Government took notice to start a crack down against the illegal refineries but till date there is little to no success in that.
