thank you and more than two hundred kilometers off the coast of nigeria a floating factory that is unique in a world as big as eight football pitches it's a foretaste of what the search for oil will become. this enormous crofters itself at the heart of a wider system that consists of searching for oil ever deeper under the sea and also further and further from the explosive situation that prevails on land. summary platforms and drilling vessels on a map a tiny rectangle named act. as the owner of a few kilometer square that represents a new eldorado. in the center floating like a queen bee a belly full of a treasure that the whole world covets is the flagship of the company token. and i have your ideas. if.

we are far from everywhere but everything is checked. and you check who backs. this. when i go up to even the people you know you've been working with for years you have to search their backs even those including the head of the station. i'm already searching for. you to show anything that's about. drugs guns knives. this kind of thing also this. situation on the gulf of guinea and the most populous country in africa nigeria is roughly the size of france and belgium combined. it's the size of the country the niger delta region that's the object of envy. a geological insolvent is overflowing with excellent quality oil.

thousands of drillings licensed to the oil companies of the whole world pierce the country's ground on land and at sea link together by pipelines that run through the mangroves in the sea in every direction. today nigeria is the largest oil producing country in africa the scene of a banquet between companies. after arriving by helicopter and after the regulation search patrick one of the two managers takes over from his colleague john francois his back to back in offshore speak. an engineer turned manager of a nigerian father under maltese mother. is one of the rare employees of the company to hold such a post. they are scheduled to produce one hundred sixty three thousand barrels a day for next month were dealing with large volumes of

it which is very very flammable is more flammable. oil also will have large volumes of gas at high pressure. it's a kind of a system so we can't beat if we have meat and there's a sparkle source for ignition the next thing you would have a fire and they would put us at risk yes everyone has to be worried about fire because a fire on board would be disastrous it could be disastrous. so much for we have to be careful here permanently on the alert for to you because you can't escape. three hundred meters long and don't go anywhere over storage tanks. in the name. of. storage offloading units woods says everything because. it's a unit that floats and it has capacity for production storage. a process

we don't stop but we sit and explore. first ask a tour of the property patrick shows us around his pipe or cathedral so what currently. that is that while the whole deck level so below. us now we have times so one of the problems that we have vessels of this size. corrosion of the. corrosion at this level. it would be difficult to read because just underneath. so it will be possible to cuts the plots out. because all the risk of exposure. is another life and then we have. just this with anybody. he said has more than enough means to.

just state. for the first time we've been allowed access to this incredibly technological and highly risky structure. on board two hundred forty men. completely lost in into lacing of pipes that you almost never meet anyone the f.p.s. as a citadel of tubes fowles elbows through which floods the precious liquid below are dozens of pipes reaching down to the bottom of the sea which suck up the oil. you could say that workers here are like the distant extras in a giant mcconnel construction protected by the navy another permanent surveillance from countless cameras. a technological exploit certainly but in a context of political paranoia. to nigerian navy patrol boat stunt gone twenty four hours a day under the olders of antonio. he

moved into security work after twenty two years in the army twenty two years of happiness as he describes it he's a man who searches the bags organizes patrols and supervises all movements around the base. i always look so here we have the mucking about since their operations center where we monitor the whole of the arklow field. with this radar. which allows us to check all the boats arriving. can the two of you to know what both of the riving and especially to pick up any suspect record that wasn't expected to enter the field with the can all these cameras they monitor all the accesses here. and inside the.

city will continue to secure but that's a lot of security measures for extracting oil. so on this on this is where the measures required to nigeria considering the threats that exists is very nigeria. bordering the man malicious intent. and espionage and boats intruding in the maritime exclusion zone. as in this case all night. are you armed here on board since it doesn't i'm not armed. if i don't there are no weapons on board even you don't have no making your room that should have some guys climb up the chain and they have weapons machine guns for example were you to. see other measures that would be taking place measures that have been designed for that situation. there are no guns on board and the situation is under control i repeat the situation is under control. i mean ari is

a small fishing village situated on the island of bonnie right at the mouth of the niger delta. and it's here that the gas sent from the f.p.s. so platform arrives by an undersea pipeline. if it went to the plant ameri ari would be a typical little village. with huts and shacks with palm leaf roofs streets of san music coming from portable radios open air stores kids running everywhere and a soccer match underway and the fisherman returning with the tide. all would be well if next door right next door protected by barbed wire they went sending millions of cubic meters of gas and oil to the most highly developed countries in the world. did by

did loading gust to order forty called new york dollars but no one noticed that the community nearby you know about it i mean look any from the company from the. food know. when you come up with these guys know that all looks that. are going to fall was a very deep study lou did not install one this. in the small harbor when the ships come in the giants with gas the tiny ones with fish to worlds rub shoulders i did looks as if the big world is giving the tiny one the finger when i don't think what i did was get a little we took our own. metal shop. sometimes

sometimes. nigerian people work for the companies yes there was a little boy with us he brought us all. about that at the white men he says but it's very odd you see on the label of a man dressed up as a fly their luggage being blocked from outside of us by the dog. and as a supreme insult naturally there's no gas in the village to smoke the fish and from cooking think of the wood from the forest. above the terminal on the chimneys that burn off the gas nonstop to prevent overpressure they tell us. that's a lot of use to the villages overpressure.

economy to wit i do some of that up if you bought there would you. think it doesn't know what that because of the devices it. is in as well as i did out for it and i said i didn't know what. that does is it not discuss the deniability i think it will do about why what i wanted not up to him to need to buy the i didn't know what the. offshore from the village the s.p.s. so engineers and technicians continue extract oil far from land because that's the jewel of the heart of the story machine the end of a pipe and in a small jar the famous brown liquid. the world's holy grail you might say.

so but this is the oil. being treated it's a condensate it's a very light crude it is you. know i mean we're more than two thousand meters down. and we can get something up that's relatively easy so it comes out of the top it's what they call the blob of nigeria. so this quality you have to go deeper and deeper to find it today or future major projects a situation of very great depth. so it's going to require immense technology. more and more to. the logical evolution to go would get the oil even deep profit.

of course other aspects of very important for the commercialization of the sort of the. you must see a mixture of water and oil because water doesn't cost much and oil costs a lot. every time we load our oil products onto a tank we have to be sure it contains a minimum of water. say the blood of nigeria because it's their role material it's their problem we're here to help them exploited it and for me it's it's the fruit of their history we spoke of their history because. it's because of their millions of years of history. that we have. and i hope it will allow them to fuel their economy just. in an efficient whiteman but despite that there are a few problems. from your point of view can you understand that there are people

who might want to attack you. maybe maybe you should. i'm just asking the question you don't have to answer that i know my answer is yes personally that doesn't surprise me. but doesn't surprise me. he's back on land we allude military surveillance to film something that's totally forbidden to film on pain or rest in major problems yeah. yeah. you know these would. protest movement to denounce the environmental damage caused by the all companies wants to show. i think that's where we move. we will move into a new we come close though this is not the abundance in that there are fifty it's the.

end of a pipeline most in the wild an enormous blaze the stench of gases insupportable the heat five hundred meters it's already unbearable i was thinking it was the forbidden things like that yes that was their problem. and that's in two thousand and five but. i'm not on that drug but our government. does not have any political will. so they're going to know the thread was against the laws of our country this is like a monster so how it smells stinks and this sound. like this is the most i was down there months but this is worse than the most you can. see this from a distance. right now. i mean this is. all.

i did the right to but the. thing that this. is funny is. becoming like. yeah. yeah. experts say that they can spend in nigeria which by itself be sufficient to satisfy the energy needs of the whole continent of africa billions of cubic meters that we saw in the bowels of vietnam up in smoke. famous the pressure in the pipe. and reality companies make so much money from the o'neill that they don't even care about the gas they pump. at the same time. these massive burn offs also create acid rain so that the water from the sky is no longer drinkable. garrison in charge of site surveillance court will have

a visit but we spent several hours negotiating bargaining explaining ourselves to the higher ups over the telephone. solicitors reputation and his work with amnesty international in particular allow us to get out of trouble. a former farm worker sinister is the leader of most of the movement for the survival of the ogoni people its founder the writer can sorrow we. denounced both the dictatorship and power in the eighty's and the ravages caused by shell the largest of the old companies present in nigeria. in a sham trial and she was accused of murder and despite the process stations and anger of the whole world he was condemned to death and hanged along with eight other members of the movement. which companies are selling yes i did visit. several music.

i want to go but it got not that but the know is this is a. walk in nigeria company is now the much as possible. of course brazil. because they know that when government. programs that this is a. protected permanently escorted synesthete has no car no address and no children anyone who hinders or production in nigeria is under threat of death. the village of a creek. even crossed by a highway of pipes that don't even very.

much before and push on. with up in here fear of the theatre. for. fear now running down to do or not to decide to do all of these areas. there was a day we were all forms that we saw all the evidence we don't know show came to.

hold all the advice shortest has all dead he sat on the trees our dead. on here we used to fish we will fishing no fish. if he's gone down for ever one day speech i shall disco i doubt he's been he's very. large do we see it is so with us because we are always afraid to dimitri's on composition. we mustn't lump everyone together not all the companies behave or have behaved as badly a shell in nigeria. it's just the worst one amongst them. offshore total

allows us to go from installation to installation. of jack ryan is a motion a special position by satellite with its derrick and its pipes it conforms to the stereotypical image we have of oil drilling. beneath the boat three thousand meters of water on the pockets of a further two thousand meters below the sea bed. and apocalyptic didn't pass condition a few months back a crane dragged three men into the sea one. of the nigerians on board the wages a uni you earn a good living in oil whether you're black.

so big. it's a big country i broke yes. but. i don't know but. on the floor below we can clearly see a pipe plunging into a pool on the ship. this is the umbilical cord fixed to the seabed. inside the slide the rounds that were drilled down to the deposit. and the oil is reached. they install a sort of giant file several stories high over that really have been done it and the engineers have a very pretty nickname for it. but. i don't know

the point here we are in front of the christmas tree is that when you cool a christmas tree which you know the christmas tree is so well head and ridges in charge of the studies civil response to. my. face. it was a. christmas tree the big day to fight for. this . was the price i feel like seventh son to fires going on we will be put to. to do this. to a few feet first my speech. was done if you go on

a seven. by. seven day. you have the money back when you bet. your. three years on he's. not using. windows goes give you. a short sell if dean is continuing his crusade and he takes us to an incredible spot swallowed up by the undergrowth on. the bed far away. i would read in bed at the. door where. i went up by one of. the three is that there are fifty six. that's why i went out with them did you not that. i'm not so bad you yourself don't last but as i speak doesn't like my place you know going in not. been of course.

you can see. used to think like you can see ya bundle he's going to look like one orphanages will go on. a money i'm bugles as you finish she's done to go minutes. right.

bleach undiscovered. communicate with you want to. test yourself and become free. nature can give you. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought

you knew you don't know. welcome to the big picture. the arab league is set to decide whether to give the go ahead to another month of their monitoring mission in syria while the opposition wants the u.n. security council to get involved. pushed to the edge of the internet or opt in a furor over plans to expand web censorship striking fast with internet why blackouts and massive hacking attacks. israel and the us talk tactics over a possible conflict in the gulf as they gather forces adarand borders while the e.u. prepares the oil embargo over iran's alleged nuclear ambitions. and in romania public anger spills over hundreds arrested and dozens injured as police

violence amid a massive ongoing anti-government protests. if any of the russian capital you're watching r.t. i'm marina joshie welcome to the program the arab league fact finding mission in syria is waiting for the green light to continue its monitoring of tiffany's for another month the decision is due to come later on sunday as the observers report comes under scrutiny at the league's gathering in cairo that's a bit harsh criticism from opposition groups which say gives or remission has failed to curb bloodshed in the latest flare up at least fourteen people have reportedly been killed in a roadside bomb attack on a van carrying prisoners in the northwest of the country are join the observers as the visit of town near the syrian capital damascus now controlled by opposite.