There is mounting panic in Okpoama Kingdom of Brass Local Government Area of Bayelsa State following a reported gas leakage from an oil well belonging to the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, NPDC, a subdivision of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL.
The leakage, which occurred along the Bendick-Kiri bloc of the Kingdom has been emitting oil and gas into the environment.
According to sources in the area, the oil well located in OML 66 and has been leaking for the past five days, smearing oil and gas into the creeks.
Reports have revealed that a hissing sound from the intense pressure forcing the oil and gas out of the wellhead could be heard from over a kilometre and has coerced fishermen out of their settlements for fear of a possible fire outbreak.
The head of the fishermen in Bendick Kiri, Mr Monday Okon, who is a native of Akwa Ibom State, had confirmed that everybody had taken flight because of the odour of the gas and oil and also for fear of a fire outbreak.
Okon had also revealed that this was the third time the leakage had occurred, but unlike thr other times, it had not been this serious.
The 53 year-old forsaken oil well experienced a gas leakage sometime in May this year but it was contained before it blew out again on the 20th of October, 2023.
Meanwhile, an ex Chairman of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Comrade Tarinyo Akono, who visited the site on Monday, October 23, described the well blow out as powerful and gravely dangerous for the people and the environment.
