International environmentalists and lawmakers are looking nervously to West African oil-patch countries including Nigeria and Angola, where watchdog groups say a near epidemic of unaddressed spills is the result of either lax regulation, pipeline vandalization by groups seeking to divert oil for their own profits or an underprepared spill-response effort. Some of these people fear the situation could worsen as oil exploration moves from the swamps and shallows of places like Nigeria's Niger Delta. In deeper water, security concerns are lower, replaced by the risks that come with the more complex techniques required for these larger, deeper reservoirs. On Jan. 26, lawmakers in the Dutch Parliament are preparing to question Royal Dutch ShellPLC about years of spills in the Niger Delta. [also refers to Chevron, BP, Transocean, ExxonMobil]