The Escravos River is a river in southern Nigeria, close to the city of Warri.[1] "Escravos" is a Portuguese word meaning "slaves" and the area was one of the main conduits for slave trade between Nigeria and the United States in the 18th century.[citation needed] The Escravos is a distributary of the Niger River, it flows for 57 kilometres (35 mi), ending at the Bight of Benin of the Gulf of Guinea where it flows into the Atlantic Ocean.[2][3]Chevron, a major US oil company, has its main Nigerian oil production facility at the mouth of the Escravos River.[4] This oil terminal pumps approximately.[5]
The Escravos is linked by a maze of interconnected waterways to the Forcados, Warri, Benin, and Ethiope rivers.[6]
The Nigerian Ports Authority (N.P.A.) granted dredging of Escravos River primarily to expand the waterways so as to make way for bigger vessals which will eventually boost the economic activity of the region and benefit the country at large.[7]
^Delta communities decry fresh oil spills from NNPC trunklineArchived 2017-02-07 at the Wayback Machine, 2016/10/13, SweetCrudeReports, ...An oil spill had occurred in these same communities on August 17, this year from a pipeline belonging to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC,...Gama-Zion community and into the Escravos River...