Shell must pay $1 bn for Niger Delta clean-up – Group

Oil giant Shell should commit $1 billion (700,000 euros) as a first step to clean up the Niger Delta following two devastating oil spills in 2008, rights groups said Thursday.

Shell has accepted responsibility for the spills in the southern Nigerian state of Ogoniland that affected the Bodo fishing community and has agreed to pay compensation, which is currently being decided in the British courts.

But Amnesty International and the Centre for Environment, Human Rights and Development (CEHRD) accused Shell in a report of failing to act quickly enough to fix the damage and demanded the Anglo-Dutch group make the billion-dollar contribution.

“It is time this multi-billion-dollar company owns up, cleans up and pays up,” said Aster van Kregten, Nigeria researcher for London-based Amnesty International.

“Shell’s failure to promptly stop and clean up oil spills in Bodo has devastated the lives of tens of thousands of people.”

A spokesman for Shell’s Nigerian operations insisted discussions were underway with the government to establish a clean-up fund for the Niger Delta and said efforts had been made to clean up after the Bodo spills.

Ogoniland has been blighted by oil pollution for decades and a landmark UN environment agency report released in August said the region might require the world’s biggest ever clean-up.

The United Nations Environment Programme report called for the oil industry and the Nigerian government to contribute $1 billion for a clean-up fund.

The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC), the Shell subsidiary which operates a joint venture in Nigeria in which the state oil company has a major stake, insisted its bid to clean up after the spills had been hampered.

“The reality is that our efforts to undertake (a) clean-up in Bodo have been hampered by the repeated impact of saboutage and bunkering spills,” the tapping of pipelines to steal oil, said an SPDC spokesman.

But van Kregten said: “This claim has been strongly disputed by the communities and NGOs who point out that the process of collecting data on oil spills is flawed.”

The SPDC spokesman said the subsidiary was already implementing many of the recommendations in the report.

Read More...

New gas discoveries threaten Nigeria’s revenue

Gas discoveries in some African countries and the United Kingdom are diminishing Nigeria ’s status as a major exporter of the commodity and putting serious pressure on the nation’s revenue from gas, as the sector struggles to attract new investments.

Nigeria has earned an estimated $6 billion, from gas exports from its projects in the last six years, to rank it in the top 10 of major producers globally. But lack of new investments and new gas field development, have seen it gradually being over- taken by even lesser known gas producing countries.

Large deposits of gas reserves have been found in recent times in the United Kingdom , Tanzania , Ghana and Mozambique and off the coast of Kenya . Industry analysts say that by the time these gas reserves are developed, Nigeria might be faced with stiff competition, which would greatly affect the level of revenue expected from gas.

They danger posed by this development, is that operators in these countries are given enough incentives to develop gas, unlike Nigeria , where the price of gas has prevented gas utilisation programmes. Operators at the recent conference on gas utilisation, organised by the Nigeria Association of Petroleum Explorationist (NAPE) acknowledged that the greatest problem facing the gas sector, was the lack of a commercialisation framework that should govern the operation of the sub- sector.

They said there were not enough incentives from the government, for investors to invest in gas development. According to Ebi Omotshola, the group managing director of Conoil, the price paid for gas currently, is the greatest disincentive to international and local operators. He said that the government should completely hands off from dictating the price of gas and allow it to be determined by market forces.

Read More...