Oil and Gas Operations and Environmental Security in EGI Communities, Rivers State: An Assessment of Total energies' Operations, 2010-2025

Abstract

This study examined the types and ways in which TotalEnergies conducts oil and gas operations in Egi communities, Rivers State, Nigeria, and assessed stakeholder perceptions of the environmental-security aspects of pollution associated with these operations between 2010 and 2025. Oil and gas activity in Obite, Obagi and Egita, communities of Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni Local Government Area, has spanned exploration, drilling, gas processing and pipeline transportation for more than five decades, yet the environmental and security consequences of this activity for host communities remain inadequately documented in the scholarly literature. The study was anchored on Environmental Security Theory and the Environmental Justice Framework, which jointly illuminate how ecological degradation threatens human and community security and how the resulting burdens fall inequitably on communities with limited power to resist them. A qualitative case study design was adopted, guided by an interpretivist paradigm. Data were generated through six focus group discussions involving thirty-six participants and twelve in-depth interviews, for a total of forty-eight respondents purposively drawn from traditional rulers and chiefs, Community Development Committee representatives, youth and women representatives, farmers and fishermen across the three communities, and analysed thematically using the six-step framework of Braun and Clarke. Findings showed that TotalEnergies' operations, comprising ageing pipelines, gas flaring, flow stations and periodic well and pipeline failures, including the 2012 Egita gas eruption, have produced sustained air, land and water pollution, while stakeholders overwhelmingly perceive these environmental changes as a direct threat to their food, water, health and community security, with declining agricultural and fishing livelihoods increasingly linked to youth restiveness, oil theft and rising community insecurity. The study recommends improved pipeline integrity management, independent environmental monitoring, restoration of degraded farmland and fishing grounds, and structured community engagement in environmental governance.

References