Gallery: Dangerous, Toxic, and Necessary — Photos Go Inside DIY Oil Refining in the Niger Delta
01Niger Delta
*In a dying swamp forest in the Niger Delta, a worker pours crude on a fire to begin the refining process. Entire camps can easily, and often do, explode when the fumes produced during the refining process catch fire. The workers cook under the cover of night to evade authorities tracking the smoke from their operations. Photo: Samuel James.*
Samuel James02Niger Delta
*A worker at an illegal refinery in the Niger Delta. The delta'€™s refinery workers labor in environmentally toxic conditions, and are under constant threat from government authorities and local militias trying to assert control over the bunkering trade. Nevertheless, diesel cooking remains significantly more lucrative than subsistence farming and fishing, and most assume these risks to lift their families out of abject poverty. Photo: Samuel James.*
Samuel James03Niger Delta
*Throughout the Niger Delta, rogue syndicates engage in industrial-scale crude-oil theft, known locally as bunkering, sell stolen oil in remote creeks and swamps -- where makeshift refineries, such as this one, distill it to diesel -- then ship it downriver to be sold on the black market. Photo: Samuel James.*
Samuel James04Niger Delta
*At an illicit refinery in the Niger Delta, a worker sits on a wooden boat filled with crude oil. The surrounding community relies on this river water for bathing, drinking, and fishing. Photo: Samuel James.*
Samuel James05Niger Delta
*A child waits to unload drums of diesel at a jetty in the Niger Delta where illicitly refined fuel is sold on the black market to local filling stations. In many riverine communities throughout the Delta, the entire local economy revolves around the illicit diesel trade, and young children often work at the unloading docks rather than going to school. Photo: Samuel James.*
Samuel James06Niger Delta
*A woman takes a break from the rigorous labor of unloading diesel to nurse her small child. Behind her, a man siphons fuel from a large metal drum into a plastic jerrycan. Photo: Samuel James.*
Samuel James07Niger Delta
*A child in the Niger Delta gathers firewood from land being cleared for farming and fuel production. Photo: Samuel James.*
Samuel James08Niger Delta
*Amidst dying forest vegetation at an illicit refinery in the Niger Delta, a worker uses diesel fuel, and then soap, to try to remove crude oil from his skin. Diesel fuel is one of the only substances that can clean crude oil from the skin. The smell lingers on everything. Photo: Samuel James.*
Samuel James09Niger Delta
*Illuminated by a Nigerian oil company'€™s perpetually burning gas flare, boats loaded with drums of illicitly refined diesel fuel line the river, awaiting their next journey to the creeks. Photo: Samuel James.*
Samuel James10Niger Delta
*Large swaths of the Niger Delta now exist as dead zones due to oil spillage and waste from local refineries. At this illicit refinery hidden deep within the brackish channels near the coast of the Atlantic, low tide reveals oil stains on the roots of dead and dying mangroves. Photo: Samuel James.*
Samuel James11Niger Delta
*As evening falls, a boat filled with drums of diesel journeys from an illicit refinery deep in the swamps to a jetty where the fuel is sold on the black market. The hand-carved wooden boats travel at night to evade authorities. Photo: Samuel James.*
Samuel James12Niger Delta
*A woman carries a jerrycan of diesel to her home in a village in the Niger Delta where she uses it to run her generator. Due to constant power outages, most Nigerians rely on privately owned generators for electricity. This, in addition to the fact that Nigeria lacks functioning domestic fuel refineries, provides a ready market for low-cost, locally refined fuel. Photo: Samuel James.*
Samuel James13Niger Delta
*At an illicit refinery deep in the creeks of the Niger Delta, a worker discards boiling sludge, a byproduct of refining, in a pit in the jungle. Photo: Samuel James.*
Samuel James14Niger Delta
*An elderly woman journeys at dawn into a creek in the Niger Delta. She has made this trip nearly every day of her life, setting traps and catching fish to feed her family. Though certain tracts remain unspoiled, the oil and gas industry, both legal and illicit, has severely polluted much of the Delta's fragile ecosystem, disrupting traditional livelihoods such as farming and fishing. Photo: Samuel James.*
