Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil service companies, said it has hired a department of the company to help seal a wellhead in southern Nigeria, which has been spouting contents for several weeks.

A spokeswoman confirmed via email on Wednesday that the Houston-based company’s Boots & Coots division has been called by independent producer Aiteo Eastern E&P Co. to control leaks from non-production wells in the southern state of Bayelsa. 

The leak occurred on an oil field named Oil Mining Permit No. 29, which Aiteo acquired from a consortium led by Royal Dutch Shell Plc six years ago. It operates a license in a joint venture with the state-owned Nigerian National Oil Company.

Lagos-based Aiteo said on November 20 that it expects that with the participation of Halliburton experts, leakage will be “reduced and significantly reduced”.

According to a statement issued on Wednesday by Action for Environmental Rights, a Nigerian advocacy organization that visited the site on Sunday, oil has been leaking "under high pressure" since November 1.

The rupture of an oil field located in the mangroves has released crude oil into the surrounding rivers and released smoke into the air. 

According to information released by NNPC, the field will produce approximately 27,000 barrels of oil per day in 2020. By July, the daily output had dropped to about 9,500 barrels, which were piped to Shell’s Bonnie export terminal.

The Lagos-based Today newspaper quoted a statement from the Nigerian Ministry of Environment on Wednesday that Aiteo has so far recovered at least 3,000 barrels of emulsified crude oil from surrounding rivers.

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