Shell should take responsibility for oil spills, Nigerian community leader says before UK trial

Shell should take responsibility for environmental damage in Nigeria caused by oil spills, a community leader said on Thursday as a pivotal hearing in lawsuits brought against the British oil major began at London's High Court.

Godwin Bebe Okpabi, leader of the Ogale community in the Niger Delta, told Reuters that he was appealing to Shell's conscience to remediate the damage, which he said had "destroyed our way of life".

Thousands of members of the Ogale and Bille communities are suing Shell and its Nigerian subsidiary SPDC over oil spills in the Niger Delta, a region blighted by pollution, conflict and corruption related to the oil and gas industry.

Decades of oil spills have caused widespread environmental damage, which has destroyed the livelihood of millions in the local communities and impacted their health.

Shell, however, says the vast majority of spills were caused by illegal third-party interference, such as pipeline sabotage and theft, which is rife in the Niger Delta.

A Shell spokesperson said the litigation "does little to address the real problem in the Niger Delta: oil spills due to theft, illegal refining and sabotage, which cause the most environmental damage".

Shell's lawyers said in court filings that SPDC recognises it is obliged to compensate those harmed by oil spills even if SPDC is not at fault, but not where it has already done so or where spills were caused by "the malicious acts of third parties".

But Okpabi said Shell had made billions of dollars in Nigeria – which he called "blood money" – and had a moral responsibility to prevent and remediate oil spills.

"As we speak, people are dying in Ogale, my community," he said. "It is sad that Shell will now want to take us through this very expensive, very troublesome trial, claiming one technicality or the other."

He was speaking outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London ahead of a four-week hearing to determine issues of Nigerian law and whether SPDC can be held liable for oil spills caused by third-party interference, ahead of a further trial in 2026.

The case, parts of which began nearly a decade ago, has already been to the United Kingdom's Supreme Court, which ruled in 2021 that the case should be heard in the English courts.

The lawsuit is the latest example of multinationals being sued in London for the acts of overseas subsidiaries, following a landmark 2019 ruling in a separate case.

By Sam Tobin, Reuters

Related story: Shell reports oil spill in Nigeria after saver pit overflows

Shell reports oil spill in Nigeria after saver pit overflows

Shell reported an oil spill on Tuesday at Ogale, near Port Harcourt, after a saver pit overflowed during flushing operations in the Niger delta region.

The oil major's Nigeria business said its spill response team contained the overflow and informed authorities.

It added that arrangements were being made for a regulator-led joint visit to determine the cause and impact of the spill, a Shell spokesperson said in a statement.

Decades of oil spills have blighted Nigeria's Niger River delta region, causing widespread environmental damage that has destroyed the livelihood of millions in the local communities and impacted their health.

Youths and Environmental Advocacy Centre (YEAC-Nigeria) said the spill occurred after an underground pit filled with crude started flowing to a pipeline that separates an area of the Ogoni cleanup project.

Reuters

Related story: Nigerian agency ‘failed completely’ to clean up oil damage despite funding, leaked files say

Nigerian agency ‘failed completely’ to clean up oil damage despite funding, leaked files say

As it passed above the Niger Delta in 2021, a satellite took an image. It showed acres of land, scraped bare. The site, outside the city of Port Harcourt, was on a cleanup list kept by the United Nations Environment Programme, supposed to be restored to green farmland as the Delta was before thousands of oil spills turned it into a byword for pollution. Instead the land was left a sandy “moonscape” unusable for farming, according to U.N. documents.

That failed cleanup was not an exception, records obtained by The Associated Press show. Previously unreported investigations, emails, letters to Nigerian ministers and minutes from meetings make clear that senior U.N. officials were increasingly concerned that the Nigerian agency in charge of cleaning up crude oil spills has been a “total failure.”

The agency, known as Hyprep, selected cleanup contractors who had no relevant experience, according to a U.N. review. It sent soil samples to laboratories that didn’t have the equipment for tests they claimed to perform. Auditors were physically blocked from making sure work had been completed.

A former Nigerian minister of the environment told the AP that the majority of cleanup companies are owned by politicians, and minutes show similar views were shared by U.N. officials.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

Thousands of oil spills in Nigeria’s Niger Delta

There have been thousands of crude oil spills in the tidal mangroves and farmlands of the Niger Delta since oil drilling and production began in the 1950s. Reports and studies document what is widely known here: People often wash, drink, fish and cook in contaminated water.

Spills still occur frequently. The Ogboinbiri community in Bayelsa state suffered its fourth spill in three months in November, harming farm fields, streams and the fish people rely on.

“We bought the land in 2023; we have not harvested anything from the farmland; both the profit, our interest, everything is gone,” said Timipre Bridget, a farmer in the community. “No way to survive with our children again.”

Many of the spills are caused by lawbreakers illegally tapping into pipelines to siphon off crude oil they process into gasoline in makeshift refineries.

After a major U.N. survey of spills more than a decade ago, oil companies agreed to create a $1 billion cleanup fund for the worst affected area, Ogoniland, and Shell, the largest private oil and gas company in the country, contributed $300 million. The Nigerian government handled the funds and the U.N. was relegated to an advisory role.

To oversee the work, the government created the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project, or Hyprep. It first addressed sites that were supposed to be easy to clean, like the one outside Port Harcourt. Then it would move on to complex ones, where oil had sunk more deeply into the ground.

But a confidential investigation by U.N. scientists last year found the site outside Port Harcourt was left with a “complete absence of topsoil” and almost seven times more petroleum in the subsoil than Nigerian health limits.

The company that performed that work has since had its contract revoked, Nenibarini Zabbey, the current director of Hyprep, who took over last year, told the AP.

The head of operations when the contract was awarded, Philip Shekwolo, called allegations in the U.N. documents “baseless, mischievous and cheap blackmail.”

Shekwolo, who used to head up oil spill remediation for Shell, said by email he knows more about tackling pollution than any U.N. expert and insists the cleanup has been successful.

But the documents show U.N. officials raising the alarm about Hyprep with Nigerian officials since 2021, when Shekwolo was acting chief.

Systemic issues with contractors

A January 2022 U.N. review found that of 41 contractors allowed to clean up spill sites, 21 had no relevant experience. Not one was judged competent enough to handle more polluted sites.

They include Nigerian construction companies and general merchants. The websites of two construction firms, for example, Jukok International and Ministaco Nigeria, make no mention of pollution cleanups.

In the minutes of a meeting with U.N. officials and Shell, Hyprep’s own chief of communications, Joseph Kpobari, is shown to have said bad cleanups happen because his agency hired incompetent companies. The U.N. delegation warned that despite their inadequate work, these companies were being rewarded with contracts for tougher sites.

Zabbey denied in an email this admission took place. The cleanup of the simple sites was not a failure, he insisted, because 16 out of 20 had now been certified as clean by Nigerian regulators and many returned to communities. Hyprep always complied with guidelines when issuing contracts, Zabbey said, and their monitors were U.N.-trained.

Questionable lab tests

Two sources close to the cleanup efforts in the Delta, speaking anonymously for fear of loss of business or employment, said test results held up by Hyprep as proof of cleanup could not have been real because when officials visited the laboratories, they found they did not have the equipment to perform those tests.

In a letter to its customers, one laboratory in the U.K. frequently used by Hyprep acknowledged its tests for most of 2022 were flawed and unreliable. The U.K. laboratory accreditation service confirmed the lab’s authorization to carry out the tests was suspended twice.

Zabbey defended the cleanup agency in a statement to the AP, saying it monitors contractors more closely now. Labs adhere to Nigerian and U.N. recommendations and are frequently checked, he said, and the U.N. could have trained local lab staff if it chose to.

The U.N. cited another problem — contractors were allowed to assess pollution levels at their sites. No government agency was setting a baseline for what needed to be cleaned up at oil-damaged sites. This meant companies were monitoring their own progress, effectively handed a “blank check,” U.N. Senior Project Advisor Iyenemi Kakulu is recorded as having said in minutes of a meeting in June of last year between the U.N., Hyprep and Shell.

No audits of Nigerian cleanup agency accounts

The U.N. warned the Nigerian government in an assessment in 2021 that spending at the cleanup agency was not being tracked. Internal auditors were viewed as “the enemy” and “demonized for doing their job.” Shekwolo’s predecessor as head of Hyprep blocked new financial controls and “physically prevented” auditors from seeing if work had been performed properly before paying contractors, according to the U.N. assessment.

Zabbey said this too, has changed since that assessment: The audit team is now valued, he said, and accounts are now audited annually, although he provided only one audit cover letter. In it, the accounting firm asked what steps had been taken to “correct the identified weaknesses.”

Shekwolo referred the AP to the office of Nigeria’s president, which did not respond to a request to show how funds are being spent. Environment Minister Iziaq Salako’s office declined an interview.

An environment minister tries to act

Sharon Ikeazor was born in Nigeria, educated in Britain, and spent decades as a lawyer before entering politics. In 2019, she was appointed environment minister of Nigeria. She was well aware of Hyprep’s alleged failings and determined to address them.

“There wasn’t any proper remediation being done,” she told the AP in a phone interview. “The companies had no competence whatsoever.”

In February 2022, she received a letter from senior U.N. official Muralee Thummarukudy, with what experts say is unusually strong language in diplomacy. It warned of “significant opportunities for malpractice within the contract award process,” in the Nigerian oil cleanup work. Ikeazor removed Shekwolo as acting chief of Hyprep the next month, explaining that she believed he was too close to the politicians.

The “majority” of cleanup companies were owned by politicians, she said. The few competent companies “wouldn’t get the big jobs.”

One of Shekwolo’s roles, Ikeazor said, was to deem who was competent for contract awards. Ikeazor said Shekwolo’s former employer Shell and the U.N. warned her about him, something Shekwolo says he was unaware of.

When she hired a new chief of Hyprep was, she had him review every suspect contract awarded over the years and investigate the cleanup companies.

“That sent shockwaves around the political class,” said Ikeazor. “They all had interests.”

“That was when the battle started,” she said.

It was a short battle, and she lost. She was replaced as environment minister and Shekwolo was rehired. He had been gone for two months.

Shekwolo says the only politicians he was close to were the two environment ministers he served under. He was never given a reason for his removal, he said, and suggested Ikeazor simply didn’t like him.

U.N. breaks ties

Last year, the U.N. Environment Programme broke ties with the Nigerian oil spill agency, explaining its five-year consultancy was over. The last support ended in June.

Ikeazor said the real reason U.N. pulled out was frustration over corruption. The two sources close to the project concurred the U.N. left because it couldn’t continue to be associated with the Nigerian cleanup organization.

Zabbey responded that he believes the U.N. merely changed its goals and moved on.

By Ed Davey, AP

Related stories:  Oil spill occurs at Shell terminal in Nigeria

Activists urge Nigeria to delay Shell’s $2.4 billion sale of assets in deeply polluted Niger Delta

Oil spill occurs at Shell terminal in Nigeria

An oil spill has occurred at the Shell loading terminal in Nigeria's Delta region after a pipeline ruptured, Nigeria's maritime agency said on Sunday.

The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) said the spill which occurred on Saturday at the Bonny terminal has reached shoreline and that it was actively monitoring the situation.

NIMASA added that it was also working with Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) and other stakeholders to assess the extent of the spill and follow-up actions.

The maritime agency said SPDC has shut down the affected pipeline and deployed containment booms to protect neighbouring communities. 

By Camillus Eboh, Reuters

Related story: Video - Challenges arise as Shell plans exit from Nigeria

 

Video - Challenges arise as Shell plans exit from Nigeria

Shell oil faces obstacles in its planned exit from Nigeria. Environmental activists accuse Shell of trying to avoid responsibility for decades of oil spills in Nigeria's Niger Delta region. The activists want Shell to clean up the region and decommission its oil infrastructure before leaving the country.

CGTN

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Advocacy Groups Call for Halt to Shell's Planned Exit from Nigeria

Advocacy groups are calling on the Dutch oil giant Shell to halt its plans to divest assets from Nigeria's Niger Delta region unless proper cleanup and decommissioning of its infrastructure is complete.

This week, a Netherlands-based nonprofit released a report accusing Shell of trying to avoid responsibility for oil spills. The Center for Research on Multinational Corporations' report, entitled "Selling Out Nigeria — Shell's Irresponsible Divestment," said the Dutch oil giant's divestment in Nigeria must be suspended until clean-up and decommissioning of assets are complete.

The group accused Shell of trying to avoid responsibility for decades of oil spills in Nigeria's Niger Delta region that have polluted bodies of water and farmlands. It said Shell's assertion that it cleaned up polluted oil spill sites is flawed and cannot be trusted.

Faith Nwadishi, founder of Center for Transparency Advocacy, agrees with the report.

"The contract that they have signed that talks about the issue of remediation, protection of the environment and all of those things have not been done," said Nwadishi. "We should be looking at the contract and interpreting it accordingly — this is international best practice. This is what happens everywhere."

Shell operations grew controversial

Shell pioneered Nigeria's oil and gas explorations in 1937, but its operations have been subject to controversy and lawsuits from local communities.

Shell often blamed sabotage and vandalism by locals for busted pipelines, oil spills and environmental pollution.

In January, the company announced plans to sell its onshore operations to a local consortium of five companies for $2.4 billion.

Shell said the move would allow it to focus on more lucrative offshore businesses and that it was also proof that local companies are able to take on a larger share of Nigeria's oil and gas industry.

But Nwadishi said if the pollution issue is not addressed, Shell's exit could set a bad example for other multinationals operating in Nigeria.

"Once one person sets a precedent — especially the bad precedences — once they're set, you see other people following up," said Nwadishi. "When they do that, what it will mean is that they set a wrong template for other multinationals to do the same thing. And unfortunately, we have this judicial system that takes forever to take care of issues like that."

Law mandates funding for cleanup

Under Nigerian law, Shell is expected to provide funding for cleanup and decommissioning of its infrastructure before exiting.

But the report says the implementation of the law is flawed and said there is no sign that Shell is trying to comply with the law.

The company has not commented on the report but recently released a list of eight cleanup operations it plans to carry out in Nigeria this year, all for spills of less than 100 barrels of oil.

Emmanuel Afimia, founder of Enermics Consulting, said Nigerian authorities must take the Shell divestment plan seriously.

"Nigeria should implement the following measures: establish a robust regulatory framework that holds multinational corporations accountable for the environmental damage caused by their operations; ensure that affected communities are consulted and involved in the cleanup process and that their concerns and needs are addressed," said Afimia. "We need to monitor and evaluate the cleanup process regularly to ensure that it is being done properly and transparently."

VOA asked Nigeria's National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency for comment on the Shell issue but has not received a response.

Before Shell can sell the assets in question, it must get approval from the Nigerian government. The government has not said whether it will authorize the sale.

By Timothy Obiezu, VOA

Related story: Activists urge Nigeria to delay Shell’s $2.4 billion sale of assets in deeply polluted Niger Delta

Activists urge Nigeria to delay Shell’s $2.4 billion sale of assets in deeply polluted Niger Delta

Local activists and international environmental groups want Nigeria’s government to delay approving the sale of oil company Shell’s onshore assets, claiming Shell is trying to shirk its environmental and social responsibilities in the highly polluted Niger Delta.

The London-based company is trying to sell its subsidiary Shell Petroleum Development Company — which operates its onshore assets in the delta — to Renaissance Africa Energy Company, a consortium of local companies. Shell says the $2.4 billion divestment deal is part of a “wider reconfiguration of the Nigerian oil and gas sector.”

But the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO), a Dutch non-profit, released a report Wednesday saying Shell shouldn’t be allowed to divest in the delta unless it takes “responsibility for its toxic legacy of pollution and ensures the safe decommissioning of abandoned oil infrastructure.”

Protesters have appealed to the government of Nigeria, Africa’s top oil producer, to halt the sale until environmental concerns are addressed. Lezina Mgbar, a 54-year-old healthcare worker and farmer who participated in a weekend demonstration in the country’s oil capital of Port Harcourt, said her Korokoro Tai community in Ogoniland has been “severely” affected by oil spills.

“In the morning, children and women have to travel far to get water, so children often cannot get to school on time, and our farm yields are poor,” Mgbar told The Associated Press. “We demand that Shell restore our land and clean our water before any divestment.”

Scientific studies have found high levels of chemical compounds from crude oil, as well as heavy metals, in the delta, where the industry largely drives Nigeria’s economy but can leave communities’ water sources slick with contaminants.

Activists say Shell has a history of poor divestment in the region. They point to a wellhead blowout in the Santa Barbara River, which flows through the Niger Delta, in 2021. The wellhead wasn’t producing but wasn’t decommissioned by Shell or its new owners, Aiteo Eastern E & P. The facility spewed crude oil and associated gas for 38 days and caused planet-warming methane to be released into the atmosphere, killed fish and devastated riverside farms.

Richard Steiner, an environmental consultant with a history of work in the Niger Delta, said the blowout on the Santa Barbara River highlights the risk of Shell and other oil majors transferring assets to new local firms without resolving legacy environmental and social concerns first.

“Many of the purchasing companies do not have the technical or financial capacity to manage these oil and gas operations safely,” he said.

Shell says it assesses the financial strength, culture and social and environmental performance records of companies it sells assets to. A spokesperson added that “mandatory submissions to the federal government allow the regulators to apply scrutiny across a wide range of issues and recommend approval of these divestments, provided they meet all requirements.”

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, who holds the portfolio of petroleum minister, will ultimately decide the fate of the Shell-Renaissance transaction. His spokesperson did not comment when contacted on Monday.

SOMO’s report documents other cases of environmental pollution that were allegedly not addressed by Shell before past divestments. Two communities, Ogale and Bille in Rivers State, have been in court pushing to make the company address past environmental concerns.

Shell and other oil companies often blame third-party interference, namely militant attacks and vandalism by oil thieves, for spills. However, companies still must clean up regardless of the cause, according to Nigeria’s law.

The deal with Renaissance is the latest move by Shell to limit its onshore operations in Nigeria while focusing on deepwater operations. Other companies, including Chevron, ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies, have been taking similar steps but without the scale of protests Shell, which is the most dominant in the region, has faced.

The civil society coalition that helped organize protests aimed at delaying the sale have petitioned Tinubu to adopt a set of principles to ensure more responsible petroleum industry divestments.

That “would help ensure a transparent process that would assess the capacity of the incoming companies, with meaningful community consultation throughout, address environmental pollution and deteriorating and abandoned infrastructure,” said Florence Kayemba, director of the Niger Delta-focused Stakeholder Democracy Network, one of the groups that came up with the principles.

Unlike in previous sales, Shell is transferring all its subsidiary shares to Renaissance, resulting in a change of ownership that would see SPDC continue to carry liabilities. Shell has said SPDC, with new ownership, will continue with the current staff and be responsible for remediation where spills have occurred in the past.

SOMO’s report noted the arrangement but said the energy giant is still trying to avoid its responsibility.

Audrey Gaughran, SOMO’s director, told the AP in a statement that “ensuring that the historical pollution, the lack of funding for safe decommissioning and poor financial transparency are fully addressed in Nigeria will be an important litmus test for a just energy transition across the world.” 

By Taiwo Adebayo, AP

Related story: Video - Nigerian oil spills agency investigates pipeline leak in Niger Delta

Video - Nigerian oil spills agency investigates pipeline leak in Niger Delta

Local communities reported the incident to the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd and the Nigerian Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency. The Niger Delta region has for decades suffered from oil spills with Shell facing legal battles for many of those leaks.

CGTN

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Shell's Trans Niger pipeline spill under investigation by Nigeria

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Possible Trans Niger oil pipeline leak investigated by Shell Nigeria

Shell's (SHEL.L) Nigerian business is investigating a possible leak on its Trans Niger oil pipeline, which passes through the Bodo community in Rivers state, after being alerted to the potential problem on Aug. 18.

Oil theft and pipeline sabotage are common in the southern oil production heartland of Nigeria, with Shell blaming most spills on pipeline vandalism and illegal tapping of crude.

The 180,000 barrel per day (bpd) pipeline is one of two conduits that export Bonny Light crude from Nigeria, Africa's biggest oil producer.

"We are working with the community and other stakeholders to ensure we can safely look into and resolve this situation," said company spokesperson Bola Essien-Nelson without providing further detail.

No force majeure has been declared.

The investigation into the Trans Niger pipeline comes days after another Shell pipeline in Nigeria resumed exports.

The medium sweet grade Forcados was scheduled to ship 220,000 bpd in July, but loadings were suspended for about a month because of a potential leak at the export terminal.

The cause of the Forcados suspension has yet to be determined by a joint investigation between company and community representatives in tandem with government agencies.

By Tife Owolabi, Reuters

Related story: The Criminals Undercutting Nigeria’s Oil Industry

Shell's Trans Niger pipeline spill under investigation by Nigeria

Nigerian authorities and Shell's local subsidiary were on Monday investigating the cause of a spill on the Trans Niger pipeline that lasted several days.

The 180,000-barrel-per-day pipeline is one of two conduits to export Bonny Light crude.

The spill at Eleme in Rivers state was detected on June 11 and four days later, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC) confirmed it in a statement.

Environmental rights groups said the spill lasted a week before it was contained.

A team comprising SPDC, Nigerian Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency and local communities were at the site on Monday to gather information, analyse data, examine physical evidence, and assess the causes of the leak, said Youths and Environmental Advocacy Centre which monitors spills in the Niger Delta.

A Shell spokesperson confirmed Monday's visit to the site.

The investigation will determine the volume of oil spilt.

Shell has over the years faced several legal battles over oil spills in the Niger Delta, a region blighted by pollution, conflict and corruption related to the oil and gas industry.

The oil major blames most of the spills on pipeline vandalism and illegal tapping of crude.

Thandile Chinyavanhu, Greenpeace Africa climate and energy campaigner, said the latest spill compounded Shell's record in one of Africa's leading oil producers.

"Shell must be held accountable and financially responsible for this spill and for its neocolonial role in causing climate loss and damage," Chinyavanhu said. 

By Tife Owolabi, Reuters

Video - $12 billion needed by Nigeria to clean up decades-old oil spills

Nigeria says it needs 12 billion dollars to clean up decades-old oil spills in southern Bayelsa state over a 12-year period. The Bayelsa State Oil and Environmental Commission says in a report that it started an investigation in 2019 on the impact of spills and looked at evidence from forensic scientists, blood samples from people in affected areas and company data. 

CGTN

Shell wins court case related to oil spills in Nigeria

The United Kingdom’s Supreme Court has ruled that it was too late for a group of Nigerian claimants to sue two Shell subsidiaries over a 2011 offshore oil spill.

On December 20, 2011, an estimated 40,000 barrels of crude oil leaked when a tanker was loaded at Shell’s Bonga oilfield, 120km (75 miles) off the coast of Nigeria’s Niger Delta.

Shell disputed the allegations and said the Bonga spill was dispersed offshore and did not impact the shoreline.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court upheld rulings by two lower courts that found the plaintiffs had brought their case after the six-year legal expiry date.

A panel of five Supreme Court justices unanimously rejected the claimants’ argument that the ongoing consequences of the pollution represented a “continuing nuisance”.

According to the Reuters news agency, the court did not look at the evidence supporting either side’s assertions or make a ruling on the issue. It only decided the legal point of nuisance.

“The Supreme Court rejects the claimants’ submission. There was no continuing nuisance in this case,” Justice Andrew Burrows said as he delivered the ruling.

“The leak was a one-off event or an isolated escape. The oil pipe was no longer leaking after six hours,” he said.

A group of 27,800 people and 457 communities living in the delta have been trying to sue Shell, saying the leftover oil slick polluted their lands and waterways and damaged farming, fishing, drinking water, mangrove forests and religious shrines.

The average life expectancy in the region is 41 years, 10 years lower than the national average.

UK courts have previously ruled against Shell in another case involving pollution in the Niger Delta.

In February 2021, the Supreme Court allowed a group from the Ogale and Bille communities to sue Shell over spills, and that case is currently through the High Court.

At that time, Shell said it was not responsible for most of those spills and said they were caused by illegal third-party interference.

“We believe litigation does little to address the real problem in the Niger Delta: oil spills due to crude oil theft, illegal reining and sabotage, with which SPDC [Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary] is constantly faced and which cause the most environmental damage,” a Shell spokesperson said.

In a separate case in 2015, Shell agreed to pay 55 million pounds ($70m) to the delta’s Bodo community in compensation for two spills after a legal battle in London.

Al Jazeera

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Nigeria Shell employees causing oil leaks for profit: Dutch TV

 

 

 

Video - Oil giant accused of pollution in Nigeria

Oil giant Shell is due in the high court in London next week. It is facing charges over claims it polluted water and soil in the Niger Delta. More than 13,000 villagers are bringing the landmark case. They accuse the company's subsidiaries of destroying their land -- and their way of life. Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris reports from Ogale, Nigeria. 

Al Jazeera 

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Sharp fall in oil spills in Nigeria after Shell shutdown

Shell on Thursday reported a sharp fall in oil spilled as a result of sabotage in Nigeria's oil-rich Delta in 2022 reflecting closure of operations for six months in the wake of attacks.

The volume of crude oil spilled caused by sabotage in the Delta fell to 600 tonnes from 3,300 tonnes the previous year, Shell said in its annual report.

The number of such spills fell to 75 from 106.

"The decreased number of incidents in 2022 correlates with a shutdown of production for about six months because of an unprecedented increase of crude oil theft from the Trans Niger Pipeline (TNP)," Shell said.

Shell is the operator of Nigeria's main onshore oil and gas joint venture SPDC which has struggled for years with operational incidents, theft and sabotage. 

By Shadia Nasralla, Reuters

Related story: $15m settlement to be paid by Shell for oil spills in Nigeria

 

Oil pipeline blast kills at least one in Nigeria

A crude oil pipeline explosion killed at least one person and injured another on Friday, authorities on the scene said, while members of the affected community in Emohua said they feared many more had died in the blast.

Garuba Yabuku, civil defence spokesman for Emohua, in Rivers State, the heart of Africa's biggest oil industry, said the incident was reported around 4:30 a.m.

"The pipeline was gutted by fire. We are not sure the number of casualties but a lady was rescued and body burnt. We are still on rescue operations," he said at the scene, where the fire was still blazing from the pipeline next to five burned out vehicles flanked by a palm forest.

"Many people got burnt inside the fire, males and females. It could be up to 15 in number," community leader Ogbonna Francis told Reuters at the scene.

Oil theft and pipeline sabotage are common in the southern oil production heartland of Nigeria, Africa's biggest crude producer. The methods used to steal oil often result in accidents that cause fires.

In 2018, a similar disaster killed 60 people.

By Tife Owolabi, Reuters

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Video - Nigeria oil saga

More than 11,000 Nigerians from the oil-producing Niger Delta have filed a compensation claim against Shell at the London High Court. Some 17 institutions have also joined the suit. It’s the latest of several cases against the multinational oil corporation over its operations in the Niger Delta. The applicants claim widespread environmental destruction and loss of livelihood. In its defence, Shell, through a spokesperson, blames illegal third-parties for a majority of the spills. This week on the programme, we highlight the key issues in this latest suit and examine at length what experts have characterised as “years of devastating environmental destruction” of the Niger Delta.

CGTN

$15m settlement to be paid by Shell for oil spills in Nigeria

Shell will pay 15 million euros ($15.9m) to communities in Nigeria that were affected by multiple oil pipeline leaks in the Niger Delta, the oil company has announced.

“The settlement is on a no admission of liability basis, and settles all claims and ends all pending litigation related to the spills,” Shell said on Friday in a joint statement with the Dutch division of Friends of the Earth.

The compensation is the result of a Dutch court case brought by Friends of the Earth, in which Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary SPDC was last year found to be responsible for the oil spills and was ordered to pay for damages to farmers.

The money will benefit the communities of Oruma, Goi and Ikot Ada Udo in Nigeria, which were affected by four oil spills that occurred between 2004 and 2007.

An independent expert had confirmed that SPDC has installed a leak detection system on the KCTL pipeline in compliance with the appeal court’s orders, the company added.

The case was brought in 2008 by four farmers and the environmental group Friends of the Earth, seeking reparations for lost income from contaminated land and waterways in the region, the heart of Nigeria’s oil industry.

In 2020 and 2021, Nigeria’s National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) recorded 822 combined oil spills, totalling 28,003 barrels of oil spewed into the environment. And experts say life expectancy in the Niger Delta is now 41 years, 10 years lower than the national average.

After the appeals court’s final ruling last year, Shell said it continued to believe the spills were caused by sabotage.

But the court said Shell had not proven “beyond reasonable doubt” that sabotage had caused the spill, rather than poor maintenance.

Reuters

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Nigeria loses $12.6b worth of crude oil in nine months

Nigeria has lost nothing less than 120 million barrels of crude oil from January and September this year amidst revenue crisis.

The level of crude oil loss in production translates to $12.6 billion going by crude oil production data obtained from the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC).

While Nigeria had proposed a budget of N20.5 trillion ($47.3 billion) in 2023 with the feasibility of relying heavily on borrowing amidst the country’s debt crisis, the $12.6 billion loss from the oil production would have provided a quarter of what is needed to finance the budget.

Infrastructure issues, pipeline leaks and oil theft have squeezed Nigerian output this year, leaving the country consistently below its OPEC+ crude targets. Nigeria’s own submission to the OPEC Secretariat put September crude output at just 938,000 b/d, just over half its quota for the month, while total liquids production was only 1.14mn b/d, according to the NUPRC.

Notwithstanding the challenges, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited is hopeful the country’s oil production will rebound to 1.8mn b/d by the end of the year and to increase further in 2023.

If Nigeria is successful in increasing its oil production, it may again broach the subject of adjusting the baseline production figure that determines its quotas within the OPEC+ group.

In 2021, the country produced 1.7 million barrels per day (bpd) in January, 1.76 million bpd in February and 1.74 million bpd in March. Production volume dropped slightly to 1.68 million bpd in April, went down to 1.65 million bpd in May and went to 1.63mbpd in June and July before dropping to 1.5 million bpd in August and September.

Compared to the same period in 2022, January production figure in terms of daily average was 1.67 million bpd, 1.52 million in February. In March, it dropped to 1.49 million bpd, went down slightly to 1.48mbpd in April before dropping sharply to 1.27 million bpd in May, 1.40 million bpd in June. It crashed to 1.31mbpd in July and worsened to 1.1 million bpd in August and September.

The total production from January to September of 2021, which included crude oil and condensate, stood at 452,051,631 barrels.

The total production from January to September of 2022, made up of crude oil, blended and unblended condensate stood at 331,825,054 barrels.

This development brought the level of loss in a space of nine months to 120,226,577 barrels.

While Brent was trading for $95.5 to barrel yesterday, the average between 2021 and 2022 stands at about $105 per barrel. The 120,226,577 barrels loss in the period under review translates to $12,623,790,585.

By Kingsley Jeremiah

The Guardian 

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Ex-Militant Tapped to Protect Nigerian Pipelines He Once Blew Up

Nigeria’s government has turned once again to a man it previously hunted as a thief and enemy of the state, recruiting him to curb rampant theft on the oil pipelines he used to blow up.

Oil production in Nigeria has plummeted over the past two years, hitting the lowest level in about half a century. The government blames rampant crude theft, pipeline sabotage and illegal refining, which it says siphons off as much as a fifth of output every day. To stem the losses, the state-owned energy company has hired security companies linked to one of the most feared of the Niger Delta’s onetime warlords: Government Ekpemupolo.

“We are going to move into serious action where we will stop all the illegal activities in the Niger Delta region,” Ekpemupolo, 51, more commonly known as Tompolo, told reporters on Sept. 2 in the town of Oporoza in Delta state.

Few people know more about wreaking havoc on the Nigerian oil industry than Tompolo, who -- as a leader in a loose coalition of heavily armed rebels -- waged a campaign from the mid-2000s for greater local control over the delta’s hydrocarbon wealth. Their attacks slashed nearly a third from peak production of 2.5 million barrels a day, before he and his peers accepted a government amnesty that granted them lucrative pipeline surveillance contracts and put an end to the violence.

That truce soured after President Muhammadu Buhari came to power seven years ago, terminating the contracts and renewing hostilities with Tompolo in particular -- as of this week he is still listed as a wanted man by the country’s anti-corruption agency.

But daily production is currently nearly 800,000 barrels lower than it was at the militants’ peak, while the Nigerian government is spending billions of dollars subsidizing gasoline and earning less than its debt-service bill.

At a media briefing last week, Mele Kyari, chief executive officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Co., defended the decision to hire, among others, two companies connected to Tompolo as part of a plan to use private security to protect the vulnerable pipelines that crisscross the delta in the south of Africa’s largest crude producer.

“Contractors were selected through a tender process for people who can do it,” he said on Aug. 30. “Not everyone can do it.”

Tompolo has stakes in two of the companies contracted by the NNPC -- Tantita Security Services Nigeria Ltd. and Matton International Services Ltd. -- according to his spokesman, Paul Bebenimibo.


“We don’t want to be second-class citizens in this country because we produce the oil that feeds everybody in this nation,” Tompolo said in the Sept. 2 television interview. His argument echoed those made by militants in the late-2000s to justify attacks on pipelines.

Average daily crude production in Nigeria fell to about 1.2 million barrels in July from about 1.9 million barrels as the Covid-19 pandemic struck in the first quarter of 2020, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The unfolding collapse has left the country unable to meet its OPEC+ quota or to benefit from high oil prices.

Top military officials have disputed the levels of theft advanced by the NNPC and other oil companies, pointing to the firms’ inability to maintain aging facilities or good relations with local communities. But Kyari said Nigeria could be producing up to 700,000 barrels a day more if not for criminals stealing crude and oil companies holding back for fear of theft.

“There is no company that will produce oil and then lose 80% of that and continue to produce the oil,” he said.

Companies injecting into onshore pipelines in the eastern Niger Delta are facing the most trouble. The Shell Plc-operated plant at Bonny, Nigeria’s largest export terminal, received an average of only 42,000 barrels a day in May, less than a fifth of 2020 input, according to government data. Sixty miles away, the Eni SpA-owned Brass terminal has experienced a similar deterioration.

Since June, the 180,000-barrel-a-day Trans Niger Pipeline, one of two that feed Bonny, has ceased transporting oil altogether due to theft. The pilfered haul is either turned into black market fuel at illegal refineries in the delta or barged out to sea for sale overseas.

Now the government is betting on one of the men responsible for a previous production crisis to resolve an even larger dip, despite accusing him in 2015 of being behind a new wave of attacks and seeking his arrest in early 2016 for an alleged 46 billion-naira ($106 million) fraud.

Tompolo told reporters last week that he planned to spread the benefits of the new pipeline security contracts widely in the delta.

“I have been in this struggle for all these years and I know that greed is the cause of all the problems in the country,” he said.

By William Clowes

Bloomberg 

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‘Green Nobel’ Winner Warns Oil Majors May Abandon Nigeria on Pollution Cleanup

A Nigerian lawyer awarded a top prize for grassroots environmental activism has warned that international oil companies divesting from the West African country will abandon their obligations to compensate and clean up communities polluted by decades of crude production.

Multinationals such as Shell Plc and TotalEnergies SE have been selling onshore and shallow water permits to local firms for more than a decade to focus on deep-water projects off the Nigerian coast. That process is accelerating as the majors map out plans to transition to cleaner forms of energy and avoid problems associated with operating close to communities in the crude-rich Niger Delta, where the oil industry has wreaked massive environmental devastation.

“Once they have divested, then they will say that he who buys the assets also buys the liabilities,” Chima Williams, who on Wednesday was named a winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize, said in an interview. The risk is that “incompetent domestic companies” short of know-how and resources will end up in possession of the licenses, he said.

Williams, who is currently the executive director of Nigerian advocacy group Environmental Rights Action, has spent decades at the forefront of efforts to hold oil companies accountable for pollution from their facilities in the Niger Delta. The 52-year-old worked with farmers from two communities and the Dutch branch of Friends of the Earth to sue Shell in the Netherlands in 2008 over pipeline leaks that had occurred several years earlier.

In January 2021, the Court of Appeals in The Hague ordered Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary to compensate the villagers and also instructed the parent company to install better warning systems. The amount of money Shell will pay has yet to be determined.

While Shell didn’t respond to a request for comment, the company has argued most spills in the Niger Delta, including those in the Dutch case that affected the Goi and Oruma communities, are caused by theft and sabotage rather than equipment failure.

But Williams said much of the infrastructure for pumping oil and gas in Nigeria, including pipelines, “has outlived its lifespan,” which makes it “easy prey.”

“There is contributory negligence on the part of the operators,” he said. The prize, dubbed the Green Nobel, is awarded annually by San Francisco’s Goldman Environmental Foundation to six recipients recognized for their grassroots work.

Read more: A King in Oil-Rich Nigeria Delta Pins Hope on U.K. In Shell Case

Formerly a UK business with headquarters in the Netherlands, Shell relocated in January from The Hague to London – where it is also facing a potentially precedent-setting lawsuit brought by Nigerian communities. The UK Supreme Court ruled last year that more than 40,000 residents of the Niger Delta could sue Shell in England over oil contamination the plaintiffs blame on the company.

The claimants from Goi and Oruma filed their suit in Europe because they think it will be easier to enforce court decisions than in Nigeria, said Williams. “We decided to bring this case in the Netherlands where we feel that Shell respects the law, respects judicial orders,” he said. Other communities have contacted Williams and ERA about the possibility of taking legal complaints against oil companies overseas, he said.

Shell is considering bids for its remaining onshore and shallow water permits, while Total last month announced it would also seek to offload its minority interest in the same group of licenses. “You leave your legacy onshore pollution problems unsorted and you are receiving incentives for making investments in areas where it would be difficult to scrutinize what you’re doing,” Williams said. 

By William Clowes

BNN

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