An oil and gas leak that Niger has been trying to control in the north-east of the country for weeks has “declined in intensity but has not yet ended,” said Nigerian Environment Minister today, acknowledging an environmental incident of “exceptional gravity.”.
© Getty Images/AFP
21/10/2026
by
Lusa
“ Aso far, the eruption has decreased in intensity, but it is not yet complete; we are not in a position to determine the quantities” of crude oil spilled, said Colonel Abdoulaye Maïzama, quoted by the French news agency, France-Presse (AFP).
The technicians “are working to control the situation and take measures to protect the environment”, he assured, recognizing that “in this pasture zone par excellence, the black tide of crude oil has already degraded the pastures and soils and there may be contamination of the surface water table”.
Since the end of September, Niger has been facing an eruption of an oil well in the desert region of the northeast, in the oil well Goumeri W8, still having not determined the causes nor been able to stop the escape.
To stop the eruption definitively, “a directional emergency well” will be pierced between October 24th and December 26th, to reach the affected well and allow its sealing, indicated the Ministry of Oil in a statement, appealing to local residents “so that they do not venture near the site of the eruption due to gas emissions”.
The oil minister, Amadou Tini, and his environmental counterpart, Colonel Abdoulaye Maïzama, as well as Algerian and Chinese experts, moved to the affected bloc of Agadem, operated by a local subsidiary of the Chinese multinational China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC).
Niger, governed by a military regime since the coup d'état in 2023, has been an oil producer since 2011, currently pumping 20,000 barrels of refined oil and 90,000 barrels of crude extracted in the Agadem region.