Shell has just alerted Nigerian coastal communities that up to 40 000 barrels of crude oil was spilled on Wednesday off the coast of the Niger delta while it was being transferred to a tanker about 120 kilometres off the coast. The spill is likely to be the biggest in a decade.
Satellite images have suggested that the spill is 70 kilometres long and is spread over a total of 923 square kilometres.
The Bonga oil field, where the spill is said ...