The explosion on the Trinity Spirit, a converted oil tanker off the coast of Nigeria, highlights the dangerous conditions and lack of maintenance on aging oil ships.
OKITIPUPA, Nigeria — It was the dead of night when the ship caught fire, Patrick Aganyebi remembers, but the flames made it seem as bright as day.
The Trinity Spirit fits a pattern of old tankers put to work storing and extracting oil even while on the brink of mechanical breakdowns. At least eight have been shut down after a fire, a major safety hazard, or the death of a worker in the last decade, according to an AP review. More than 30 are older than the Trinity Spirit and still storing oil around the world.
More than half the current fleet of FPSOs are recycled oil tankers, according to Oslo-based Rystad Energy, which keeps data on the ships. Senior analyst Edvard Christoffersen said that without a major repair, most oil ships have hulls built to last about 25 years. But some FPSOs are used far longer, sometimes to dangerous effect.
But the fleet’s growing age is well known in the industry. The average hull age of FPSOs has increased from 22 to nearly 28 years since 2010, according to Rystad Energy. The American Bureau of Shipping — one of several companies known as classification societies that certify vessels’ safety — launched a working group in 2021 to address the challenges of older FPSOs, noting that 55 ships were approaching the end of their intended lives.
By 2019, Nigeria’s petroleum regulator had revoked the Trinity Spirit’s license to pump oil. Nigeria’s head of maritime safety, quoted in local, said his agency had directed the ship to stop operating five years before the blast. Yet the Trinity Spirit was never forced to leave. Not long after their escape, and still in the throes of recovery, Aganyebi and a fellow crewman were arrested on accusations of “Murder, Arson, and Malicious Damage,” according to their charging documents. Police were acting on a complaint from Shebah Exploration and Production Company Limited — the Trinity Spirit’s longtime operator.“They committed no offense, they did nothing wrong. They were staffers of the company,” Benson Enikuomehin said.
According to Okafor, liquidators seized ownership of the Trinity Spirit in 2018 due to Shebah’s outsized debt. Yet in a deposition given one year before the explosion, the company’s former president, Ambrosie Orjiako, described how Shebah continued to run operations. Shebah had started running operations on the ship in 2004, taking over from Houston-based ConocoPhillips. But the site’s wells had passed peak oil production several years earlier, according to the energy research firm Wood Mackenzie. Within a few years Shebah’s venture showed signs of financial stress.
For those who remained, there were times on the ship when there was nothing to eat, the survivors told AP. Yorgolo recalled how the crew went hungry one year on Christmas. On a separate occasion — the worst of them, he said — the engine room flooded and the staff worked for three days without food. The radio operator sent a message pleading with oil operators nearby to come to their aid.
The charges were dropped in October last year after the Ondo State Ministry of Justice reviewed the case. In conversations with AP, the men vehemently denied setting the vessel on fire or illegally storing oil. They blamed the explosion on their employer, Shebah, and the years without maintenance on the ship.“No medical personnel, no safety officer, no radio man in that gigantic vessel,” he said.
Explosion Nigerian Oil Ship Neglect Disrepair Dangerous Conditions Lack Of Maintenance Aging Oil Ships
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