The Price of a Barrel

THE PRICE OF A BARREL

How much is a barrel of crude oil worth?

The answer is usually given in dollars.

$70.

$80.

$100.

We know the market price.

But do we know ask the other price?

What does that barrel cost the people living where the oil is extracted?

Nigeria exported about 1.3 million barrels of crude oil and condensate every day in 2024, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That was more than 470 million barrels in that year.

Imagine that for a moment.

Hundreds of millions of barrels leaving the ground

Hundreds of millions of barrels of crude exported.

Many more simply dumped into the environment from derelict equipment.

Now, imagine these barrels left in the bowels of the earth

Back through the pipeline.

Back through the flow station.

Back through the creeks.

Back into the soil beneath a community.

What do we find?

A fisher.

A farmer.

A woman fetching water.

A family thriving in a healthy environment.

And sometimes, an ecosystem that has been carrying the consequences for decades.

In 2011, the United Nations Environment Programme published the results of one of the most extensive scientific assessments ever carried out on oil pollution in Ogoniland. UNEP investigated more than 200 locations, collected more than 4,000 samples, surveyed 122 kilometres of pipeline, reviewed more than 5,000 medical records, and engaged more than 23,000 people.

This was not a story.

It was an investigation.

And the findings were devastating.

At five locations, concentrations of total petroleum hydrocarbons in groundwater exceeded 1 million micrograms per litre.

The Nigerian groundwater standard cited by UNEP?

600 micrograms per litre.

Read that again.

More than 1,000 times the standard at some locations.

And this is where the question becomes uncomfortable.

When crude oil is extracted and sold, its value can be calculated immediately.

But how do we calculate the value of a contaminated river?

How much is a fishing ground worth when the fishes disappear?

How much do we calculate the value of contaminated air

The price of asthma, bronchitis, and cancers?

How much is farmland worth when a farmer can no longer depend on it?

How much does a family spend replacing food it used to produce?

And what happens to a child growing up in a pollution they did not create?

These are not theoretical questions.

Research on oil-affected communities in the Niger Delta has documented the economic consequences. In one study, 88.4% of respondents said they suffered losses when oil spills occurred, while 43% had already changed their livelihoods and another 25.5% intended to do so.

So, the actual cost of a barrel isn't found on the commodities market.

Part of the cost is sitting in an empty fishing net.

Or in a farm that no longer produces enough.

Or in a family that must leave home to find another way to survive.

A barrel of oil can be extracted, transported and sold in a matter of days.

But repairing the damage associated with oil pollution can take generations.

That is the part of the oil story we don't put on the price tag.

We talk about production.

Exports.

Revenue.

Energy security.

But we don't talk about the ecological debt.

And who is paying it.

The price of a barrel isn't just what we pay to buy it.

It is also everything someone else is forced to pay after it leaves.

It is everything the environment bears