Posts under ‘Oil Spill’

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

FROM PAGES 28 & 29

These cases are important for what they mean for the individuals and communities involved. They could also set important precedents on the responsibility of companies for their overseas operations, which would open the way for further litigation not only against Shell but other multinational corporations as well.

They are also placing a much-needed spotlight on Shell’s business model in Nigeria.

Nigeria’s regulation of the oil industry is undoubtedly weak and lacks independence. Government agencies responsible for industry regulation and enforcement are under-resourced, ineffective and in some cases compromised by conflicts of interest. Its own courts have failed to offer the victims of human rights abuses a meaningful avenue for seeking justice for the oil spills that have blighted the Niger Delta and the lives and livelihoods of its communities. Shell has thus avoided being held effectively to account in Nigeria. read more

Thousands of barrels of oil spouted out of the broken pipeline at Bodo for 10 weeks before Shell finally clamped it on 7 November 2008. © CEHRD

Pastor Christian Kpandei contemplates the damage done to his fish farm in Bodo, Nigeria, May 2011. The farm flourished before the August 2008 oil spill, but the pollution destroyed his fish farm, leaving him and his workers without a regular income. © Amnesty International

3.2.1 FOUR FARMERS’ CASES

The first of the pollution-related cases marked the first time that any Dutch company had been sued in the Dutch court for the operations of its subsidiaries overseas.

In 2008, four Nigerian farmers (Eric Barizaa Dooh, Fidelis Ayoro Oguru, Alali Efanga and Friday Alfred Akpan), along with Milieudefensie, the Dutch section of Friends of the Earth, filed claims against RDS and SPDC.44

They are seeking to obtain compensation for alleged damage to fish ponds and land caused by oil spills from two underground pipelines and an oil well operated by Shell in the villages of Goi, Ikot Ada Udo and Oruma between 2004 and 2007.45 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

Esther Kiobel and Victoria Bera sit with their lawyer as a Dutch court hears the first arguments in an historic case against Shell, in which the oil giant stands accused of instigating a raft of horrifying human rights violations committed by the Nigerian government against the Ogoni people in the 1990s, on February 12, 2019 in The Hague, Netherlands. © Pierre Crom/Getty Images

 KIOBEL AND OTHERS V SHELL

Shell’s operations in the Niger Delta were first, and most effectively, put under the spotlight in the 1990s by Ken Saro-Wiwa, an acclaimed Nigerian writer. Saro-Wiwa led a community organisation in his home area, Ogoniland, called the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP). MOSOP said that while outsiders had grown rich on the oil that was pumped from under their soil, pollution from oil spills and gas flaring had, “led to the complete degradation of the Ogoni environment, turning our homeland into an ecological disaster.”10 read more

Nigeria is Africa’s largest oil producer.4

Its industry is based in the Niger Delta, in the south of the country, where Shell first found oil in commercially viable quantities near the village of Oloibori in 1956, when Nigeria was still a British colony.5

The Niger Delta has since become Africa’s most valuable oil-producing region.

The industry is run by joint ventures between the Nigerian government and multinational companies. Shell has always been the most important of these. Shell runs its oil operations in Nigeria through its subsidiary, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC). It is a major shareholder and the operator of the country’s largest joint venture, which produces almost 40 percent of Nigeria’s oil.6 read more