Shell: Because One Billion Barrels of Nigerian Oil Just Wasn’t Enough

Posted by John Donovan: 17 Dec 2024

Ah, Shell. The gift that keeps on giving… to its shareholders, at least. The planet? Local communities? Nigeria’s long-suffering environment? Oh, they’ll just have to suck it up—quite literally—because Shell’s back at it again with its shiny new toy: the Bonga North Oil Project.

That’s right, folks. Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Co. Ltd. (SNEPCo)—Shell’s lovingly ruthless Nigerian arm—has given the go-ahead to drill, baby, drill in deep waters off Nigeria’s coast. Because when you’ve already sucked one billion barrels of oil out of a single deepwater field, you naturally look around and think, “What’s next? More barrels, obviously.”

This time, the greedy oil barons are gearing up to extract another 300 million barrels of oil equivalent with their latest venture—a neat little subsea tie-back to the existing Bonga floating storage and offloading (FPSO) facility. In layman’s terms: “We’re upgrading our rig and cranking it to 11.” The project is expected to hit peak production of 110,000 barrels of oil per day. First oil’s expected by 2030, which—let’s face it—is probably long enough for everyone to have conveniently forgotten about all those pesky climate pledges Shell keeps making.

The heavyweights holding the spoils? Shell’s leading the pack with a 55% stake, joined by ExxonMobil’s baby Esso (20%), TotalEnergies, and Agip (12.5% each). Oh, and let’s not forget Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), because when it comes to “partnerships”, Shell’s as inclusive as they come—as long as you’re willing to profit off the spoiling of land, sea, and sky.

Zoë Yujnovich, Shell’s Integrated Gas and Upstream Director, delivered the usual corporate PR sugarcoat: “This is another significant investment, which will help us to maintain stable liquids production from our advantaged Upstream portfolio.” Translation? “More oil equals more cash. Screw everything else.”

And it is advantageous… for Shell’s bottom line. With an internal rate of return well above the hurdle rate, you can almost hear the clinking of champagne glasses over at BlackRock and other major investors who keep stuffing Shell’s pockets with cash. Because who cares about melting ice caps and rising sea levels when those dividends look so damn good?

For those keeping track at home, Bonga has been “a deep-sea darling” since 2005, when it started spitting out crude oil like a firehose—225,000 barrels a day, to be exact. By 2023, the project hit a historic one billion barrels produced, and Shell practically gave itself a standing ovation. Why stop there, right? It’s not like Nigeria has had its fair share of oil spills, gas flaring, or environmental devastation over the last half-century courtesy of Shell. Oh, wait…

And lest we forget Shell’s knack for buzzwords—this time, they’re boasting about “simplification and replication.” In case you’re wondering, that’s corporate-speak for, “We’ll use the same exploitative playbook, just faster and cheaper.” Efficiency at its finest.

Here’s the bottom line: Shell is investing billions into wringing out every last drop of oil from the Nigerian seabed while the world barrels toward climate chaos. Sure, their greenwashing ads will keep playing on loop about “transitioning to a cleaner energy future,” but make no mistake—Shell’s just the same old sin stock, polluting its way to quarterly profits.

So congratulations to Shell and its ever-faithful investors. They’ve truly outdone themselves. After all, when you’re already swimming in oil profits, why stop now? The planet will just have to burn a little brighter.

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