(file photo). The company says it will clean up the environment later. Aiteo, operator of oil mining lease (OML) 29, on Wednesday, announced it has succeeded in putting out the leak on its Santa Barbara wellhead in Nembe, Bayelsa State. The Minister of State for Petroleum, Timipre Sylva, also said the well has been capped. “We have put out the leak at SBAS-1. We are grateful for all the support,” Mr Sylva said in a statement, according to Reuters. The OML 29 Well 1 platform, which is operated by Nigeria’s largest indigenous oil firm, Aiteo Exploration and Production Company Limited, had been spilling crude unabated into the Santa Barbara River for about one month, impacting marine lives and polluting the environment. The company had on November 5, reported to the Nigerian government a hydrocarbon wellhead leak on the facility. The company had recently said it hired Halliburton’s Boots and […]