A crude production flow station operated by Conoil Production at Ango field in Koluama, Southern Ijaw local government area of Bayelsa, has been shut down.

Oil workers at the onshore facility connecting oil wells within the swamps and creeks at Koluama were escorted out of the area in speedboats by armed security men.

The aggrieved community members had besieged the facility and told the oil workers to shut down the facility and leave the site of the 30,000 barrels per day capacity flow station.

On Tuesday, a community leader in Koluama I, a rural settlement along the Atlantic coast, Young Fabby, said the facility was forced to shut down to protest the oil firm’s insensitivity to its social obligations to the people.

He added that the aggrieved community shut operations at the flow station on Monday and sacked oil workers deployed to run the facility following Conoil’s failure to renew the Memorandum of Understanding which expired in 2020.

“The Koluama clan was compelled to take the action following the refusal of the oil company to dialogue on several outstanding issues, amongst which is the MoU which had expired for more than one year.

“All entreaties through established channels have been rebuffed. Secretary of Koluama Kingdom Oil/Gas Committee, Jonathan Amabebe, had drawn attention to the refusal of Conoil, and this is regrettable,” Mr. Fabby explained.

Conoil’s spokesman, Abiodun Azeez, declined to comment on the development. However, the Commandant of Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps in Bayelsa, Christiana Abiakam-Omanu, confirmed that protesters were at the facility but that only Conoil could confirm if it was forced to shut down operations.

(NAN)