Friday 6 September 2013

Shell in compensation talks over Nigeria oil spills

Shell is to begin
compensation talks with thousands of
Nigerian villagers who say their livelihoods
were ruined by two massive oil spills in the
Niger Delta, the energy giant said on Friday. The talks will start next week in Port
Harcourt, the capital of Nigeria’s southern
Rivers state and the hub of Africa’s largest
oil industry, the Anglo-Dutch company said. About 15,000 residents of Bodo, a cluster
of fishing villages in Rivers State, are
seeking millions of dollars of compensation
over the 2008 spills. “We’re hopeful that an acceptable
agreement can be reached with the Bodo
community during next week’s settlement
negotiations in Nigeria,” a Shell spokesman
said. Lawyers acting for the villagers say the local
environment was devastated by the two
spills, depriving thousands of subsistence
farmers and fishermen of their livelihoods. Experts estimate the spills to be between
500,000 and 600,000 barrels, according to
London-based law firm Leigh Day, which is
representing the Nigerians. Shell admitted liability for the spills in 2011
but disputes the amount of oil spilled and
the extent of the damage. “To date nothing has been paid in
compensation and no clean-up work has
begun,” Leigh Day said. The Nigerians’ lawyer Martyn Day described
Shell’s position on the clean-up as “pitiful”. He said: “We will be doing our damnedest to
ensure that Shell pay out a fair amount for
the damage they have caused and put the
Bodo Creek back into its pre-spill state.” Shell said it hoped a deal could be reached
with the villagers to provide “fair
compensation, as well as a way forward on
cleaning up the entire area affected by oil
spills”. Previous talks have broken down over a
compensation and clean-up package for the
Nigerians. Shell provided the villagers with food relief
in 2009 but Leigh Day blasted the supplies
as “entirely inadequate for a community of
31,000 people”. The oil giant said it rejected some of the
claims made by Leigh Day, but that its goal
was “resolution, not recrimination”. It described the 2008 spills as “highly
regrettable”. Shell blames oil thefts and sabotage of key
pipelines as the major causes of spills in the
Delta, where swathes of land have been
ravaged by oil pollution. Nigeria is the world’s eighth-biggest oil
producer, pumping some two million barrels
a day. Shell is the biggest producer in the west
African country, where it has been drilling
for over 50 years.

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