Shell will pay $410 million to Nigeria's Ogoniland for oil spills

LONDON - In the first case of its kind, a British high court sitting in London has ordered oil major Royal Dutch Shell to pay compensation of potentially more than £250 million (US$410 million) to the Bodo community of Rivers State, after the Anglo-Dutch oil group admitted liability for two spills around the community, following a class-action lawsuit brought in England by the Niger Delta community.

Martyn Day of the London-based law firm Leigh Day & Co. represented the Bodo community and brought the legal claim for damages against Royal Dutch Shell plc. (RDS) and its subsidiary, Shell Petroleum Development Co. (Nigeria) ltd. (SPDC).

It was the first time the companies faced claims in England for damages resulting from their operations in Nigeria.

The lawsuit was filed in England in April over two oil leaks in 2008 and 2009 that caused devastating damage to the environment and the waterways - in particular to the fishing community of Bodo.

Shell said it was informed of the first leak in early October 2008, but the Bodo community countered that at the time of the leak the company had pumped oil for about six weeks. Even then it took Shell over a month to repair the weld defects in one of its pipelines which had resulted in oil leaks into the community at an estimated rate of 2,000 b/d.

The oil spill caused massive contamination in the creek, rivers and waterways in the Bodo area, as well as the mangroves, causing devastating pollution to the entire area. The damage was estimated to have affected about 20 square km. of Gokana local government area of Rivers State.

A further spill occurred in December 2008, due to equipment failure. It was not capped until February 2009, when greater damage had been inflicted upon the creek, as tens of thousands of barrels of crude oil were pumped into the surrounding rivers and creeks.

The amount of oil spilled is estimated to be as large as the spill that caused the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska in 1989. The size of the coastline affected is equivalent to that damaged by the BP Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

Shell says $1.1 billion Nigerian crude-oil pipeline nearing completion

PORT HARCOURT - Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s Nigerian unit said it “is close to completing” a $1.1 billion pipeline that can transport 600,000 b/d of crude oil to its Bonny export terminal on Nigeria’s Atlantic coast.
The 60-mile Nembe Creek pipe collects crude oil from 14 oil pumping stations and is part of a program to replace old pipelines in the Niger River delta, the company said in an e-mailed statement.
Shell, which has replaced more than 1,000 kilometers of pipeline in Nigeria in the last five years, said the improvements “will have only limited impact on oil spills, until widespread oil theft, sabotage and vandalism” abates.
While attacks on pipelines have been reduced since thousands of fighters accepted a government amnesty last year and disarmed, Shell has reported an increase in the activities of oil thieves who bunker or tap crude from pipelines for sale to vessels waiting offshore.

BP shareholders defeat oilsands resolution

BP shareholders overwhelmingly rejected a resolution that would have required the company to report on the environmental, financial and reputational risks of developing Canadian oilsands projects. The resolution was rejected by 85 percent of shareholders voting.
BP was one of four major oil companies involved in oilsands extraction targeted for such shareholder resolutions. The other three, Shell, ConocoPhillips, and ExxonMobil, have their shareholder meetings in May.
Besides being more expensive to extract, crude oil derived from oil sands, also known as tar sands, emits 20 percent more CO2 over its life cycle than oil from conventional sources.
However, the rising price of oil, combined with the prospect of a major new source in a friendly, stable nation, makes such development attractive, and Canada’s tar sands contain the second largest crude oil reserves in the world after Saudi Arabia.

Shell agrees to pay $15.5 million out of court to settle Nigerian death case

NEW YORK - Royal Dutch Shell agreed on June 8 to pay $15.5 million to settle a case accusing it of taking part in human rights abuses in the Niger Delta in the early 1990s.
The settlement came days before the delayed start of a trial in New York that was expected to reveal extensive details of Shell’s activities in the Niger Delta.
The announcement caps a protracted legal battle that began shortly after the death of the Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa in 1995. Saro-Wiwa, Shell’s most prominent critic at the time in Nigeria, was hanged by the country’s military regime after protesting the company’s environmental practices in his native Ogoni region.
Despite the settlement, Shell continued to deny any role in the death. It called the settlement a “humanitarian gesture” meant to compensate the plaintiffs, including Saro-Wiwa’s family, for their loss and to cover a portion of their legal fees and costs. Some of the money will go into an educational and social trust fund intended to benefit the Ogoni people.