Nigerians win UK court OK to sue Shell over oil spills

By Julia Payne, Kirstin Ridley: 4 MIN READ: FEBRUARY 12, 2021: 11:56 AM

LONDON (Reuters) – The UK Supreme Court on Friday allowed a group of 42,500 Nigerian farmers and fishermen to sue Royal Dutch Shell (RDS) in English courts after years of oil spills in the Niger Delta contaminated land and groundwater.

Senior judges said there was an arguable case that UK-domiciled Shell, one of the world’s biggest energy companies, is responsible, in the latest test of whether multinationals can be held to account for the acts of overseas subsidiaries. read more

Nigerian Shell employees orchestrated oil spills for own profit-Dutch TV

By Bart H. Meijer, Anthony Deutsch: DECEMBER 10, 2020

AMSTERDAM, Dec 10 (Reuters) – Employees at Royal Dutch Shell’s Nigerian joint venture orchestrated damage to oil pipelines to profit from the money spent on clean-up operations, Dutch investigative TV programme Zembla reported on Thursday.

Employees of Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) recruited local youth to sabotage the pipelines and then hired them back as workers to clean up the mess, the report said, citing research by Dutch environmental group Milieudefensie. read more

Oil pollution in Kegbara-Dere (K-Dere) community in Ogoniland, Rivers State, Niger Delta, Nigeria. This community has experienced multiple oil spills since Shell started operations there in the 1960s. September 2015. © Michael Uwemedimo/cmapping.net

Shell’s pipelines in Ogoniland are old and poorly maintained. There have been several spills and in 2009 there was a huge fire, at the Bomu Manifold, at K. Dere, Rivers state. September 2015. © Michael Uwemedimo/cmapping.net

Dead periwinkles covered in oily mud from Bodo creek, Nigeria, May 2011. There were two massives spills in August 2009 from a poorly maintained Shell pipeline. © Amnesty International

Signboard warning people not to enter stream that has been contaminated by oil spills, Ogale, Rivers State, Nigeria. Every year there are hundreds of spills in the Niger Delta, and clean-up is often slow and ineffective. © Amnesty International

3.2 ENVIRONMENTAL CASES (Pages 16, 17, 18 & 10)

There are three separate legal proceedings taking place against Shell in Dutch and British courts relating to oil pollution. This has devastated the Niger Delta.

Data from Shell’s own spill incident reports reveal that from 2011-18 the company reported a huge number of spills – 1,010 – along the network of pipelines and wells that it operates.25 Spills have a variety of causes – from third-party tampering, to operational faults and corrosion of aged facilities. Shell blames most spills on theft and pipeline sabotage, and are not due to its own negligence.26 read more

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Alleged Non-Remittance: Environmental Activist Wants EFCC, AGF To Probe Shell: Writ Issued 24 Sept 2019

An environmental activist and legal practitioner Anderson Achilike has in a suit called on the Attorney General of the Federation Abubakar Malami, and the Economic And Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to probe Shell Petroleum Development Company Nigeria Limited.

Achilike in the suit filed on Wednesday at the Federal High Court, Abuja sued Shell Petroleum Development Company Nigeria limited over alleged non-remittance and under declaration of crude oil exportation and shipment; instigation of acts of pipeline vandalism; oil theft; third party interference in trunk line operations; incessant cases of fire outbreak.

Achilike said he filed the action “as a matter of urgent national importance to save the dwindling economic fortunes of the country from acts capable of undermining the future of Nigeria.” read more

By Elisha Bala-Gbogbo: 5 June 2019, 01:00 BST

About 100,000 barrels of crude are being taken daily: SBM

Oil-theft is now an industry employing thousands in Nigeria

Just as Nigeria gets to grips with militants who brought the nation’s oil industry to its knees a few years ago, another group of longstanding foes are slowly making a comeback: thieves.

Saboteurs including thieves caused an 80% increase in the number of spills in 2018, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, the largest international producer in the West African country, said in a report last month. By contrast, there have been no militant-related halts to operations since 2016. read more

Earlier this month, a Dutch court ruled that it had the jurisdiction and would hear a damages lawsuit against Shell brought by the widows of activists executed by Nigeria’s government after the protests in Ogoniland in the 1990s.

By Tsvetana Paraskova – May 27, 2019, 4:00 PM CDT

The Nigerian unit of Royal Dutch Shell doesn’t have any plans to return to exploring or producing oil in Ogoniland in Nigeria’s Rivers state after it ceased operations there in the 1990s, Igo Weli, General Manager, External Relations, at the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) said this weekend at the release of Shell Nigeria’s 2019 Briefing Notes.

SPDC, as operator of the SPDC Joint Venture, carried out exploration and production operations in Ogoniland from the 1950s until the early 1990s. Production ceased in 1993 following a rise in violence, threats to staff, and attacks on facilities, Shell said. read more

By Dulue Mbachu and Sherry Su: 30 April 2019, 10:38 BST Updated on 30 April 2019

Shell, Total declare force majeure on some crude oil grades

Idled Chevron well suffers fire after third-party incident

A spate of disruptions and security concerns, including kidnappings, are threatening to hinder surging Nigerian oil exports.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Total SA declared force majeure on some of their Nigerian exports over the past week, a measure that allows companies to skip supply obligations. Chevron Corp.’s Nigerian unit said an idled well was interfered with.

While the precise cause of the Total force majeure remains unclear, the Shell and Chevron incidents involved third parties. The disruption comes just a few years after militants caused Nigeria’s oil production to plunge by attacking pipelines and other pieces of energy infrastructure. read more

A Shell spokesperson in The Hague reiterated on Saturday evening that the group is supporting the police in investigating the kidnapping case. He also abstained from further explanation.

Printed below is an English translation of an article published today by the Dutch FT, Financieele Dagblad.

Two Shell employees abducted in Nigeria

Van onze redacteur

Two Shell employees were abducted in Nigeria on Thursday. Two Nigerian agents who accompanied them died in the process.

The raid took place in the Delta region, the Nigerian police announced on Friday evening. The employees and their assistants returned from a business trip and were attacked by armed men on a road in the state of Rivers. The supervisors were killed, after which the Shell employees were taken away.

Nothing was disclosed about the identity and nationality of the two Shell employees. read more

27 April 2019

Two senior employees of the oil company Shell have been kidnapped and their police escorts killed in Nigeria’s restive Delta region, police said.

The attack took place as the workers were returning from a business trip on Thursday on a road in Rivers state.

Gunmen killed the guards, one of whom was driving the vehicle, and seized the two workers, officials said.

A police spokesman said efforts were under way to rescue the Shell employees.

Their names and nationalities have not been released. read more

by Rosemary Nwisi, Port Harcourt: April 26, 2019

Two oil workers of Shell Nigeria have been kidnapped in Rivers State.

Two police escorts were also killed during the kidnap, The Nation understand.

It was gathered that the incident happened on Thursday evening along the Ahoada-Ndele-Rumuji-Emohua axis of the East-West road, Rivers Staten.

The two kidnapped senior staff members of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) were said to be returning from an official trip from the neighbouring Bayelsa state when they were attacked by the gunmen, killing their security escorts. read more

Nigeria’s oil wells may be flowing again, but the country’s largest operator says attacks continue to put a brake on output.

Written by Bloomberg – 05/06/2018 9:35 am

“Security in parts of the Niger delta remains a major concern with persisting incidents of criminality, kidnapping and vandalism as well as onshore and offshore piracy,” said Igo Weli, general manager for external relations at Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s local unit. The warning underlines the enduring threat of attacks even as production recovers from a major militant campaign in 2016. Shell declared force majeure on Bonny Light crude shipments last month following pipeline leaks, while loadings of Forcados exports were also delayed. Weli didn’t specifically link those incidents to his comments on vandalism. FULL ARTICLE read more

By Doris Esa: 20 MAY 2018

The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) has met with Shell companies in Nigeria to plan the protection of oil installations, including deployment and use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs).

The Air Force said it was ready to partner with Shell to deploy the drones to help secure the companies’ oil and gas pipelines.

The NAF said it would deploy the drones to other critical oil installations in the Niger Delta.

A statement by the NAF Director of Public Relations and Information, AVM Olatokunbo Adesanya, announced this in Abuja. read more

Shell managed a large force of police officers, which provided security for the company’s personnel and property. The records show that this force included a team of undercover officers, which received training from the security services. 

Extract from pages 11 & 12 of an Amnesty International document headed: “A CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE? SHELL’S INVOLVEMENT IN HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN NIGERIA IN THE 1990s”

Under Executive Summary.

BEGINS

SHELL LENT MATERIAL SUPPORT AND ASSISTANCE TO THE ARMED FORCES

Shell provided the security forces with logistical support and payments as a matter of routine during the 1990s. Former Shell Nigeria chairperson, Brian Anderson explained that this was standard practice in relation to the military:

“In reality, any operational contact with the government requires financial and logistical support from Shell. For example to get representatives of the Department of Petroleum Resources to view an oil spill we often have to provide transport and other amenities. The same applies to military protection.” (emphasis added) read more

By Emmanuel Addeh in Yenagoa: 21 Oct 2017

The Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) says the degradation of the environment in the Niger is mainly due to spillages from the activities of crude oil thieves, sabotage of facilities, illegal refining and other third party interferences, rather than negligence by the company.  FULL ARTICLE

Royal Dutch Shell plc (NYSE:RDS.A) (NYSE:RDS.B) is a big player in Nigeria, a country that has been dealing with increases in civil unrest and sporadic violence over the past few years, particularly from the Niger Delta Avengers group that wants a larger portion of the oil & gas tax revenue to go to the Niger Delta region. This is on top of Nigeria’s ongoing fight against the Boko Haram insurgency in the northern parts of the country. The ongoing security situation is a major risk for Shell’s Nigerian operations, especially as the Niger Delta Avengers have shown the ability to repeatedly target bottlenecks like pipelines and force a lot of output offline. Let’s dig in by first going over what’s at stake for Shell. FULL ARTICLE read more

Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) remitted 29.8 billion dollars to the federation account and 1.2 billion dollars to Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) between 2002 and 2016, Igo Weli, General Manager, External Relations, made the disclosure on Monday. Mr. Weli spoke in Port Harcourt while reacting to the shut-down of SPDC flow station and gas plant in Belema community by angry youth. The youth accused the company of neglecting them and marginalising their community. Addressing journalists, Mr. Weli said the seizure of the company’s facilities by the youth would not only send wrong signal to the international community, but was capable of discouraging further investment in the Niger Delta. FULL ARTICLE read more