CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background to the Study

In recent years, tremendous attention has been directed towards environmental negative effects by man’s activities which adversely affect the lives of plants and animals on land, water and air and even livelihood of people (OECD, 1976). One activity that has aroused considerable interest across the globe and especially in oil producing countries like Nigeria especially in the Niger Delta region is crude oil exploration.  Crude oil exploration is one of such activity that can affect the environment negatively especially when accidents occur in operations resulting to spillage of oil. As a result of the impacts of crude oil operations to the environment, there have been actions in the activities of crude oil exploration across the globe to prevent the high risk of oil spillage and the accompanying environmental hazards (Ojakorotu and Gilbert, 2010). However, the exposure to risk has not been helped by the players in the oil industry who jostle for the ‘liquid gold’ thereby putting pressure on the oil producing communities and the surrounding environment. According to Egwu (2012), one of the factors that cause discharge of oil to the environmental is the unethical engineering operations practiced by the industries involved.

An example of the catastrophic impact of oil spill is the Exxon Valdez oil spill which occurred in Prince William Sound, Alaska, on March 24, 1989 with an estimated crude oil spill of 260,000 to 750,000 barrels and more recently the BP deep-water horizon oil spill on 20 April 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico caused by the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. It caused an oil discharge for 87 days with an estimated total discharge at 4.9 million barrels, (Egwu, 2012). As a result of lessons learnt from these and other oil spills, the prevention, response and management of oil spills is being given top priority worldwide especially in oil producing countries such as Nigeria in order to circumvent the economic and environmental hazards of an oil spill. To this end, several initiatives have come to the fore. One of such initiatives is to make and enforce laws and contingency plans for the prevention and control of oil spills. It is however curious that in most developing oil producing nations including Nigeria, the management of oil spill to prevent and respond to unwanted oil discharge even after so many years of petroleum exploration and production activities have not seen a reduction in the number of spillage occurrence. This has caused the government to resolve to grossly inadequate measure of monetary compensation to the victims of oil spill rather than concerning itself with the more appropriate solution of prevention and management to safeguard the environment, society and economy from the menace that is an oil spill.

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