An aerial view of an aging petroleum facility and crude oil spillage in a mangrove swamp near Warri, Nigeria. View this area on Google Maps. #

A woman lays clothes out to dry on oil pipelines running through the Okrika neighborhood of Port Harcourt in Nigeria's oil-rich delta region, in this October 7 2006 photo. #

Gas flaring at the Total oil platform at Amenem, offshore from Nigeria, on April 14, 2009. Flaring is a common practice in the petroleum industry, where it is used to eliminate waste gas which cannot be easily used or transported. Excessive flaring is generally considered to be wasteful and harmful to the environment, releasing massive amounts of toxic and greenhouse gases contributing to health concerns and climate change. #

Nigerian oil companies burn off the second largest volume of natural gases in the world, with the practice of gas flaring. In 2008, Nigerian flares burned off an estimated 15.1 billion cubic meters of natural gases, or roughly 70% of the overall gas recovered that year. The flares are so prevalent, the Niger Delta appears brightly lit (lower left) in this detail from a NASA image of the Earth at night. Flare activity at night from 1994 through 2007 is also visible as a movie compiled by NOAA. #

A petroleum facility with two natural gas flares (upper left) visible with Google Earth, near Ogbogwu, Nigeria. View this area on Google Maps. #

A view of an illegal oil refinery is seen in Ogoniland outside Port Harcourt in Nigeria's Delta region March 24, 2011. Crude oil thieves -- known locally as "bunkerers" -- have been a fact of life for years in Africa's biggest oil and gas industry, puncturing pipelines and costing Nigeria and foreign oil firms millions of dollars in lost revenues each year. #

Canoes used for siphoning crude oil to illegal oil refinery are scattered on a creek in Ogoniland outside Port Harcourt in Nigeria's Delta region, on March 24, 2011. #

Part of the oil port facility at Bonny, Nigeria, the main shipping point for the crude oil flowing out of the Niger Delta region. View this area on Google Maps. #

Fire rages on two wooden boats with crude oil seized by the military from oil thieves in the Andoni area of Rivers State, Nigeria, on April 12, 2011. A Joint Task Force, comprised different arms of the military, seized a barge with large quantity of crude oil and burned seized wooden boats used by thieves to siphon crude oil from pipelines. #

Spilled crude oil floats on the waters around the Niger Delta swamps of Bodo, a village in Ogoniland, which hosts the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) in Nigeria's Rivers State, on June 24, 2010. #

Smoke is seen behind a woman, after an oil pipe line started burning two weeks ago, close to the town of Kegbara Dere which is situated around 55 km (34 mi) from Port Harcourt, Nigeria, in this April 19, 2007 photo. #