For over 50 years now, the extraction of crude oil and natural gas from Nigeria's Niger Delta has meant wealth for a privileged few but has exacted heavy costs on residents and the environment. Nigeria is the world's 8th largest producer of crude oil, yet remains one of its poorest nations -- an estimated 70 percent of its 150 million residents live below the poverty line. The environment is paying a steep price as well. An estimated 500 million gallons of oil have spilled into the delta -- the equivalent of roughly one Exxon Valdez disaster per year. A number of factors have contributed to these disasters: poor construction and maintenance, lax regulation, militant attacks, and petroleum thieves, not to mention government instability and abuse of power. According to cables released by WikiLeaks, Shell Oil claimed to have planted staff in all of Nigeria's main ministries, gaining access to key government decisions. Gathered here are some scenes from Nigeria's long, disastrous relationship with the crude oil industry.
Nigeria: The Cost of Oil
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An aerial view of an aging petroleum facility and crude oil spillage in a mangrove swamp near Warri, Nigeria. View this area on Google Maps. #
Google/GeoEye -
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A woman lays clothes out to dry on oil pipelines running through the Okrika neighborhood of Port Harcourt in Nigeria's oil-rich delta region, in this October 7 2006 photo. #
AP Photo/Sunday Alamba -
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Gas flaring at the Total oil platform at Amenem, offshore from Nigeria, on April 14, 2009. Flaring is a common practice in the petroleum industry, where it is used to eliminate waste gas which cannot be easily used or transported. Excessive flaring is generally considered to be wasteful and harmful to the environment, releasing massive amounts of toxic and greenhouse gases contributing to health concerns and climate change. #
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Nigerian oil companies burn off the second largest volume of natural gases in the world, with the practice of gas flaring. In 2008, Nigerian flares burned off an estimated 15.1 billion cubic meters of natural gases, or roughly 70% of the overall gas recovered that year. The flares are so prevalent, the Niger Delta appears brightly lit (lower left) in this detail from a NASA image of the Earth at night. Flare activity at night from 1994 through 2007 is also visible as a movie compiled by NOAA. #
Image from a 2003 NASA map by Robert Simmon, based on data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Operational Line Scanner, processed by the NOAA National Geophysical Data Center -
A petroleum facility with two natural gas flares (upper left) visible with Google Earth, near Ogbogwu, Nigeria. View this area on Google Maps. #
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A view of an illegal oil refinery is seen in Ogoniland outside Port Harcourt in Nigeria's Delta region March 24, 2011. Crude oil thieves -- known locally as "bunkerers" -- have been a fact of life for years in Africa's biggest oil and gas industry, puncturing pipelines and costing Nigeria and foreign oil firms millions of dollars in lost revenues each year. #
Reuters/Akintunde Akinleye -
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Canoes used for siphoning crude oil to illegal oil refinery are scattered on a creek in Ogoniland outside Port Harcourt in Nigeria's Delta region, on March 24, 2011. #
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Part of the oil port facility at Bonny, Nigeria, the main shipping point for the crude oil flowing out of the Niger Delta region. View this area on Google Maps. #
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Fire rages on two wooden boats with crude oil seized by the military from oil thieves in the Andoni area of Rivers State, Nigeria, on April 12, 2011. A Joint Task Force, comprised different arms of the military, seized a barge with large quantity of crude oil and burned seized wooden boats used by thieves to siphon crude oil from pipelines. #
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Spilled crude oil floats on the waters around the Niger Delta swamps of Bodo, a village in Ogoniland, which hosts the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) in Nigeria's Rivers State, on June 24, 2010. #
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Smoke is seen behind a woman, after an oil pipe line started burning two weeks ago, close to the town of Kegbara Dere which is situated around 55 km (34 mi) from Port Harcourt, Nigeria, in this April 19, 2007 photo. #
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Click to view imagePolice and officials stand above a skeletal burned corpse lying on the ground next to a gas pipeline that exploded at the waterside village of Ilado, about 45 km east of Lagos, Abuja, Nigeria, on Friday, May 12, 2006. Gas gushing from the ruptured pipeline exploded Friday as villagers scavenged for the free fuel, setting off an inferno that killed up to 200 people and left charred bodies scattered around the site. #
AP Photo/Sunday Alamba -
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