Oil spillage in Niger Delta region of Nigeria has been on an increase and almost on a regular basis but the thrust of this study is the speed of occurrence of the oil spill incidence with respect to the reported date of the incident.  The objective of this study is on the speed of occurrence of the oil spill incident in the Niger Delta: a stochastic markov pattern analysis with emphasis on how fast a particular state of occurrence switches to the other and on an average how long it takes for another report of oil spill incident to be announced and investigated. The stochastic markov pattern analysis was employed and also the summed differences of dates of spillages were also considered, the monthly occurrences and their respectively averages were also examined and it was discovered that its speed of occurrence is on an average approximately less than one week i.e. 6.7 or one week, i.e. 7 days before another incident is reported. It was also discovered that the transition probabilities of the switching from a state of earlier occurrence to a state of later occurrence is high, that is, 80%. The study concluded that to reduce or manage oil spillage in Nigeria, the Federal government and Federal environmental management agency should enforce the laws governing oil spill incident in Nigeria.

Keywords: occurrence, oil spill, Niger Delta

Jel Codes: P28, Q53, Q56