Posts under ‘Oil Spill’

Shell Brent legs: Decom decision ‘postponed’ for giant structures

A decision on whether Shell will be allowed to keep the giant legs of the Brent field in the North Sea forever has been “postponed”.

Allister Thomas: 4 Sept 2020

The Ospar Commission, the intergovernmental body to protect Europe’s marine environment, confirmed the UK Government has still not made a decision on the controversial plans, 11 months on since the last formal meeting on them.

The legs of the Shell Brent Bravo, Charlie and Delta, made of steel and concrete, each weigh around 300,000 tonnes and are taller than the Eiffel Tower. read more

North Sea – WEBWIRE – Wednesday, August 26, 2020

Today Greenpeace activists from Germany have launched a protest in the North Sea to call out Shell’s plans to abandon an estimated 11,000 tonnes of oil in the sea.[1] The Greenpeace ship Esperanza approached the 500m exclusion zone of Shell’s platforms in the Brent oil field, off the Shetland Islands, with protestors on board waving banners calling on Shell to clean up its mess. Today’s protest also highlights how Shell is failing to take responsibility for its harmful impact on the environment. read more

Ogoni and the Unforgettable History of State Brutality, By Fegalo Nsuke

21 August 2020

The Ogoni is daily in the news with reports of extra judicial killings, persecution, police repression, military torture and all sorts of human rights abuses. The conflict rages as the Nigerian oil industry seeks to adopt unsavoury measures to forcefully resume oil production in the area without the people’s consent.

The Ogoni people have become very familiar with the insincerity of the Nigerian oil industry, forcing a growing cynicism that continually creates distrust and conflict each time the Ogoni issue is mentioned. read more

Nigerians Can’t Sue Shell Units As Group Over Oil Spill

Law360, London (August 17, 2020, 4:33 PM BST) — Tens of thousands of Nigerians suing Shell in London over an oil spill will have to pursue their claims as individuals after a judge ruled that their demands for the energy giant to clean up the pollution doomed their chances of proceeding as one group.

Each of the 27,000 Nigerian residents and hundreds of communities must show how the oil spill at the Bonga offshore field, pictured, hit their livelihoods.  read more

Only 11% of Shell’s oil polluted Ogoniland undergoing HYPREP clean-up, says Friends of the Earth

Ben Eguzozie: 15 July 2020

Godwin Uyi Ojo, executive director of Environmental Rights Action/ Friends of the Earth, Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) says a recent study the NGO carried out on the 21 sites being currently cleaned up by the Federal Government agency, Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP), represent only 11 percent of the entire area identified by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). read more

Bank supervisor Johnson Banigo avoids wearing light-colored shirts to his job because they’re ruined by the dark soot that falls from the heavens.

Banigo, 34, lives and works in Port Harcourt, the center of Nigeria’s petroleum industry where the evening sky literally glows with gas flares. Half a century of oil spills has left a 27,000 square-mile region of swamps, creeks and mangrove forests in southeastern Nigeria one of the most polluted places on earth. Life expectancy is just 41 years. read more

ABUJA, June 23 (Reuters) – Britain’s Supreme Court heard an appeal on Tuesday from Nigerian farmers and fishermen seeking to pursue claims against oil major Royal Dutch Shell over spills in the Niger Delta.

The appeal re-opens the possibility of British multinationals being held liable at home for their subsidiaries’ actions abroad. It comes after a setback in 2018 when a London court ruled that the claims could not be pursued in England.

A judgement is expected later this year or in early 2021, a court spokeswoman said. read more

Nigerians Bid to Sue Shell in U.K. Over Oil-Spill Pollution

Photo source

By William Clowes and Laura Hurst: 23 June 2020, 05:00 BST

• Residents want to use 2019 ruling to access U.K. courts
• Shell says compensation lawsuit should take place in Nigeria

Thousands of Nigerians are asking British judges to give them permission to sue Royal Dutch Shell Plc in London over environmental damage caused by oil spills 3,000 miles away in Africa.

Lawyers for residents of the crude-rich Niger Delta believe a landmark U.K. Supreme Court ruling last year against a London-based miner should set a precedent. Shell, which has blocked the suit twice from entering British courts, says the litigation should be heard in the West African country. read more

By John Donovan

I wonder if the American Ballet Theatre is aware of the sinister background of its new benefactor, Hakluyt & Co – the corporate intelligence agency sometimes described as the commercial offshoot of MI6.

Titled Shell directors, the late Sir Peter Holmes, and Sir William Purves, were also directors, major shareholders and spymasters of Hakluyt & Company, a UK corporate espionage firm founded by former senior MI6 officers. BP directors were also involved. 

Shell used Hakluyt to engage in cloak and dagger operations against its perceived enemies, including Greenpeace, as exposed in a Sunday Times front-page lead article “MI6 ‘firm’ spied on green groups”. Continuing on to an inside page feature headlined “How agent Camus sunk Greenpeace oil protests”.  read more

More than 40,000 Nigerians from the Ogale and Bille Communities in the Niger Delta will take their legal fight against Shell to the UK Supreme Court on Tuesday, June 23, 2020.

The case will be heard via video link and will be live-streamed online. The hearing is listed for one day. The communities argue in their legal case that they have been severely affected by years of oil spills from oil pipelines owned and operated by Shell. read more

Only 11% of contaminated sites have even seen clean-up operations begin

Thousands of Ogoni people still facing serious health risks, some unable to access safe drinking water

Supreme Court to hear case next week brought by affected Niger Delta communities 

‘The discovery of oil in Ogoniland has brought huge suffering for its people’ – Osai Ojigho 

Nearly ten years after the UN called for a major clean-up of areas of the Niger Delta polluted by the oil giant Shell and other oil companies, decontamination work has begun on only 11% of planned sites while vast areas remain heavily contaminated, according to a new investigation by four NGOs published today. read more

18 JUNE 2020

Nearly 10 years after a clean-up was urged for areas polluted by Shell and other oil companies in the Niger Delta, work has begun on only 11% of planned sites while vast areas remain heavily contaminated, according to a new investigation by four NGOs.

In 2011 the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) released a report documenting the devastating impact of the oil industry in Ogoniland, and set out urgent recommendations for clean-up. But the new investigation highlights that “emergency measures” proposed by UNEP have not been properly implemented and that the billion-dollar clean-up project launched by the Nigerian government in 2016 has been ineffective. read more

“Shell extracts a lot of oil and gas from Nigerian soil, and that is associated with pollution, sabotage, tax lawsuits, protests from the local population and suspected corruption.”

English translation of a Dutch article by nrc.nl

Dutch ambassador leaked information to Shell

Nigeria Robert Petri, the Dutch ambassador to Nigeria, had been in post for less than a year and a half. He did not have a good relationship with his staff. And above all: wasn’t he too close to Shell?

Prime Minister Mark Rutte (l) and Shell chairman Ben van Beurden (r) visiting President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria, autumn 2019. Photo Bart Maat / ANP read more

June 2, 2020

On 23 June, the Supreme Court will consider whether Shell can arguably be held liable for pollution caused by its Nigerian subsidiary, which destroyed farming land, wiped out fish stocks and poisoned drinking water. In 2018 the Court of Appeal ruled that Shell did not exercise enough control over the subsidiary to hold it responsible for the well-being of those affected by the oil spills.

This is the latest stage in a four-year legal action brought by communities seeking compensation for the catastrophic environmental damage caused by widespread oil spills. read more

MOSOP Allegations Against Shell

The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) wishes to strongly express its concerns over the visit by Shell officials in the company of Nigerian soldiers to Ogoni oilfields yesterday (April 30, 2020).

Eye witness accounts and credible community sources which monitored the activities have it that officials of Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited, a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell Plc, yesterday visited some communities in Gokana local government including Biara and K-Dere inspecting pipelines in the area in view of possible reactivation of the oilfields for oil production. read more

This article is part of the dossier: Nigeria’s silent killer: the deadly price of oil

By Kelechukwu Irouoma, Ruth Olurounbi: Posted on Thursday, 30 April 2020 21:23

In this third and final report, we see how the oil spill clean-up in Ogoniland is still not complete, despite recommendations by the UN and money distributed to the Nigerian government.

The people of Bodo were compensated by Shell after they filed a case in the United Kingdom, where Shell is incorporated. Shell accepted the responsibility for the oil spills of Bodo in 2008 and 2009. The parties settled in 2015 and $83.4m, 82% short of their original demand of $454.9m was paid to the people of Bodo. read more