Good morning.  My name is Patricia Lynn and I'm the Campaigns Director for Corporate Accountability International, formerly Infact. Corporate Accountability International is a membership organization that protects people by waging and winning campaigns challenging irresponsible and dangerous corporate actions around the world. For over 25 years, we've forced corporations--like Nestlé, General Electric and Philip Morris/Altria--to stop abusive actions. We work closely with Environmental Rights Action-Nigeria, and I have a question for you about gas flaring in Nigeria.

Gas flaring isn't hard to imagine. It is essentially a one-story high furnace shooting out giant flames; these flares rage 24 hours a day, seven days a week in communities across Nigeria. What is hard to imagine is why ChevronTexaco continues to use gas flaring so regularly in Nigeria. Gas flaring is hardly ever done in the US and Europe, and according to the World Bank, there are more gas flares in Nigeria than any other country in the world.

People who live in the communities next to the gas flares are exposed to pollution like benzene, which is known to cause cancer in human beings. Children in these communities suffer from respiratory diseases, such as asthma and bronchitis. And no protection is provided against noise and intense heat from the flares. Villagers complain of acid rain corroding their roofs. The World Bank has described gas flares as "the most striking example of environmental neglect" in Nigeria.

ChevronTexaco has exploited Nigeria's oil, at the expense of local communities that live with the daily dangers of these flaming monstrosities, for decades. Laws were passed in Nigeria over 20 years ago to ban gas flaring, yet you flout that law every day. Your corporation gets away with these irresponsible and dangerous actions because of your tremendous economic and political clout.

Neither ChevronTexaco nor the other major transnational oil corporations operating in Nigeria are making the needed investments to address the problem. ChevronTexaco and the other backers of the West African Gas Pipeline have made vague, confusing and often contradictory statements on the percentage of associated gas that would flow through the pipeline, which suggests the project would not contribute to a reduction in gas flaring.

So let's recap: gas flaring is rarely practiced in most of the rest of the world--even at other ChevronTexaco sites outside of Nigeria; it is dangerous and exposes people to cancer-causing chemicals; and it is illegal and has been for twenty years. 

Mr. O'Reilly, when will you ensure that ChevronTexaco permanently ends gas flaring in Nigeria? How will you be accountable to local communities, national laws and global standards of human rights and environmental protection?

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