Nigeria: NNPC to Begin Production On Shell’s Ogoni Oil Wells, by Chika Amanze-Nwachuku, This Day, Allafrica.com, 28 January 2011

image credit: Ken Saro-Wiwa from remember saro-wiwa, http://remembersarowiwa.com

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) said Thursday that the Nigeria Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), its producing arm, will soon commence production from the 30 oil fields belonging to Shell Petroleum Development and Production Company (SPDC) in Ogoniland.

Group Managing Director (GMD) of NNPC, Engr. Austen Oniwon, who confirmed the development in an interview with journalists in Abuja, said the move was in line with the Corporation’s mandate to produce 250,000 barrels of crude oil per day in 2015.

Oniwon said to achieve the set mandate, the NPDC has grown its asset base in three fold preparatory to becoming a big player in the upstream sector, while the enabling environment has been provided by the Federal Government

The SPDC was forced to abandon the prolific oil wells in 1995, following the crisis that greeted the murder of former President of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP), Ken Saro-Wiwa.

However, in 2008, the Federal Government announced that the oil fields would be handed over to another operator acceptable by the Ogonis on grounds that there was a total loss of confidence between the Ogoni people and Shell. Government reasoned that the solution to the crisis was to allow an operator acceptable to Ogonis to take over exploration activities in the area.

The pronouncement had pitched Shell against the Federal Government, as the oil giant insisted that it would not hands off those blocks to any operator, other than a Joint Venture partner. Shell had faulted government’s decision and resisted initial plans to hand over the control of the Nigerian oil fields to Chinese oil companies.

After intense lobbying, government named the NPDC as the new operator of the oil blocks, a development, which received the commendation of Shell, which under the NPDC’s operatorship, would continue to be a shareholder in the Ogoniland operations.

The news of the NPDC’s planned commencement of exploration has elicited reactions from Ogoni people, who vowed last month to resist any such moves.

MOSOP President, Mr. Ledum Mitee, told THISDAY recently that the Federal Government was yet to contact the Ogoni people on the planned take-over, insisting that any company that would be allowed to explore oil in Ogoniland must be acceptable by the people of Ogoni.

“I have not been contacted about the plan by the NPDC to begin production, although the government was considering appointing a new operator. Our position as always is that Shell must be replaced. So it is important that government should first discuss whoever will be coming with us. I should expect government to contact us for discussion first and for us to know who is coming what the company stands for and what they are bringing to the table. We don’t want Shell or something like Shell or a company that will work for Shell,” he said.

Also, Ogoni people, under the umbrella of National Union of Ogoni Students, USA, recently cautioned Shell, NPDC and the NNPC against what it described as the danger of back door negotiations with acclaimed stakeholders, and vowed that neither Shell, NPDC nor NNPC would be allowed to operate in the area.

The students in a statement titled “Ogoni Allegations Against the Nigerian Government and Shell”, a copy of which was made available to THISDAY warned against using the security forces to terrorise the people of Ogoni in order to start oil production.

The statement read: “We also discovered that the Rivers State government, NPDC, Shell and the federal authority are making another calculated attempt to start oil production in Ogoni without meeting the demands of the people as stated in the Ogoni Bill of Rights (OBR). They planned to do this through the use of the already established security task forces (Abacha style) coupled with some help from the deceptive works of the UNEP. We strongly advise the Rivers State government to stop using the State security taskforce to terrorise the people of Ogoni in order to start oil production.

“We abhor a repeat of state and corporate sponsored violence that characterised the 1990s’ which was used by the Nigerian government as a pretext to kill prominent Ogoni leaders and over 4000 Ogoni indigenes for demanding their rights. Ogoni students viewed these secret attacks as a sponsored activity by Shell Oil and the authority to resume oil operations in Yorla Oil Fields. We shall be forced to take civil actions against Shell and all those behind these constant threats to the peace of Ogoni”.

We’ll shut down Chevron operations, community threatens, by Joe Ogbodu, Nigerian Compass, published Monday, 14 February 2011 04:45

Joe Ogbodu, Warri

FOR allegedly excluding their community in its welfare programmes despite alleged environmental pollution in the area, the people of Obe-Nla in Ilaje Local Government Area of Ondo State have threatened to shut down the operations of the American oil giant, Chevron Nigeria Limited (CNL) in its domain.

The community said they have given Chevron one month ultimatum to right the wrongs, threatening that if by the end of February, nothing was done to address the matter they would shut down oil locations in the area.

One of the demands of the community is the payment of N250 million compensation, which they claimed had been agreed as a settlement claim at a meeting since July 2002.

Also, the community wants the implementation of the Global Memorandum of Understanding (GMoU) agreement under the Ilaje Regional Development Commission (IRDC).

In a petition recently, the community accused CNL for allegedly neglecting them since 28 years when it started its hydrocarbon activities in the area.

They lamented that all they have gotten from the oil firm is outright denial of benefits, exclusion from the list of host communities as well as marginalisation and environmental degradation.

“We have never benefited any developmental programme from Chevron,” spokesman of Obe-Nla, Prince Eko Isinmi Okolo, said.

The President’s budget proposes to cut more than $4 billion in taxpayer subsidies to the oil industry. We need your help to convince Congress to make these cuts.

It won’t be easy. Over the last two years, Congress received more than $12 million from the oil industry. And for every $1 that Big Oil invests in campaign contributions to Congress, they get a payback of at least $332 in the form of subsidies.

That’s an unbelievable bargain. It’s no wonder that Big Oil and their allies in Congress are doing everything they can to keep those subsidies. But it’s not their money, after all, it’s yours.

To make matters worse, these are the same politicians who say we need to stop spending and balance the budget. It’s time for them to stop talking out of both sides of their mouths. It’s time to pay back the American people, not the oil industry.

Please send a letter to your representatives in Congress to demand that our government stop supporting Big Oil and Coal.

The oil industry wants you to ignore the way they buy your government, remain ignorant of their massive profits, overlook your pain at the pump, and forget about the environmental consequences caused by this dirty industry.

But we won’t forget, and neither will you. It’s time to take action to eliminate the billions of taxpayers’ dollars going into the pockets of Big Oil.

That’s what Oil Change International is fighting for and here is how you can help: Tell your Senators and Representatives to stop using your tax dollars to support this dirty industry.

It’s time for some payback of our own, as we remind Congress who they should be working for.

UPDATE 2-Ecuador plaintiffs appeal Chevron damages award
6:07pm EST, By Victor Gomez, Reuters

Indigenous farmers say $8.6 bln in damages not enough

Chevron says charges of polluting the jungle are false (Recasts, adds plaintiffs appeal, updates throughout)

LAGO AGRIO, Ecuador, Feb 17 (Reuters) – Ecuadoreans suing U.S. oil giant Chevron Corp (CVX.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) for environmental damages on Thursday appealed a recent court ruling that awarded them $8.6 billion, claiming that more money would be needed for cleanup efforts.

Residents of Ecuador’s Amazon jungle say that Texaco, which was later acquired by Chevron, dumped polluted water into their rivers and left drilling waste to fester in unlined pits, charges that the company denies.

At $8.6 billion, the damages figure is one of the biggest environmental judgments ever. But plaintiffs say more money will be needed to clean up the Rhode Island-sized swath of rainforest that they accuse Texaco of wrecking when it operated in area during the 1970s and 1980s. [ID:nN16261158]

In their appeal before a three-judge panel at Sucumbios provincial court, in the heart of Ecuador’s Amazon region, the plaintiffs did not say how much they are seeking in damages.

“We do not have an economic figure. It is an open petition,” lead lawyer Pablo Fajardo told Reuters.

The long legal battle in Ecuador, which has spawned related actions in U.S. courts and international arbitration, is seen as a test case widely watched by international oil companies wary of precedents for other major damage claims.

Chevron inherited the case when it bought Texaco in 2001. It says it cleaned up all waste pits it was responsible for before turning the sites over to Ecuador’s state-owned oil firm, Petroecuador, which still operates in the area.

Chevron says the 17-year-old legal saga has been driven more by greedy trial lawyers than concern for the environment.

Calling the charges false, Chevron says it will seek to overturn Monday’s ruling by Sucumbios court judge Nicolas Zambrano that found the company responsible for pollution.

Resolution could still be years away, and few analysts expect the company to pay anything soon, if at all. Chevron’s stock price was not hit by the Feb. 14 ruling, as investors had widely expected the verdict.

ENFORCEMENT SUSPENDED

Company lawyers filed a 31-page request with the court on Thursday, asking to clarify points included in its ruling.

“Our filing today has the same effect as an appeal in that it suspends the enforcement or execution of the verdict,” Chevron spokesman James Craig told Reuters.

“The judge must resolve our request for clarification of his ruling and, upon doing that, the company will have 72 hours to file its appeal,” he said.

Zambrano’s tiny courtroom is in a rundown building in an Amazon town called Lago Agrio near the Colombian border.

In its request for clarification of his Monday ruling, Chevron wants to know more about the formula that Zambrano used to come up with his damages assessment.

The company is also asking the judge if he viewed outtakes from the 2009 documentary “Crude” that were subpoenaed by Chevron as part of U.S. court proceedings related to the case.

The company says the clips, which did not appear in the film, show evidence of fraud on the part of the plaintiffs. [ID:nN10247574] (Additional reporting by Alexandra Valencia in Quito, writing by Hugh Bronstein; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Cynthia Osterman)

Chevron fined $8bn over Amazon ‘contamination’, by Dominic Rushe and Rory Carroll, guardian.co.uk, Monday 14 February 2011 23.30 GMT

Ecuadorian judge finds oil giant responsible for widespread damage to Amazon basin caused by drilling

An Ecuadorian judge has ruled that Chevron was responsible for widespread contamination of the country’s Amazon basin and fined the company $8bn (£5bn). The oil firm blasted the ruling as a “fraud”.

Pablo Fajardo, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, told Associated Press the judgement at the provincial court of justice of Sucumbíos in Lago Agrio was “a great step that we have made towards the crystallisation of justice”, but the fine was too small – far below the $27.3bn sought by the plaintiffs – and they may appeal.

The epic and bitterly fought lawsuit over the “Amazon Chernobyl” has been going on for 18 years. It was brought on behalf of 30,000 people whose health and environment were allegedly damaged by chemical-laden waste water dumped by Texaco’s operations from 1972 to 1990. Chevron bought Texaco in 2001.

The lawsuit alleges that Chevron should be held responsible for $27bn in damages from illness, deaths and economic loss suffered by the Amazon residents. The case was the subject of 2009′s award-winning documentary Crude and has attracted celebrity supporters including Sting, Trudie Styler and Daryl Hannah.

The case goes back to the 1970s when Texaco partnered the government oil company PetroEcuador to drill wells. Texaco ended its Ecuadorian operations in the 1990s and was assigned responsibility for cleaning up sites proportional to its share in the project. The company spent $40m on the clean-up and argues that it was legally released from further claims or liabilities. But the suit claims the clean-up failed to address faulty drilling practices by Texaco that caused damage to wide areas of jungle and harmed indigenous people.

The case has triggered a slew of related legal action in the US and international courts and has led to an arbitration case in The Hague. This month Chevron lawyers sued a group of trial lawyers and consultants, claiming they were organising a campaign to rig the Ecuadorian court system in a bid to win billions in the pollution claim.

Last week an international arbitration panel in The Hague ordered Ecuador to “take all measures at its disposal to suspend or cause to be suspended the enforcement or recognition within and without Ecuador of any judgment” against Chevron in the case. Chevron had claimed that Ecuador was violating the terms of a 1997 trade pact with the US.

A 2009 US state department report entitled Investment Climate Statement for Ecuador stated: “Systemic weakness and susceptibility to political or economic pressures in the rule of law constitute the most important problem faced by US companies investing in or trading with Ecuador.” The report claimed “corruption is a serious problem in Ecuador,” and that “the courts are often susceptible to outside pressure and bribes”.

Chevron said the judgment was “illegitimate and unenforceable”, adding: “It is the product of fraud and is contrary to the legitimate scientific evidence. Chevron will appeal against this decision in Ecuador and intends to see that justice prevails.

“United States and international tribunals already have taken steps to bar enforcement of the Ecuadorian ruling. Chevron does not believe that today’s judgment is enforceable in any court that observes the rule of law. Chevron intends to see that the perpetrators of this fraud are held accountable for their misconduct.”

In contrast, the advocacy groups Amazon Watch and Rainforest Action Network hailed the ruling. “It is time Chevron cleans up its disastrous mess in Ecuador.”

On the possibility of appealing, Fajardo said: “We believe the evidence before the court deserves international respect and the plaintiffs will take whatever actions are appropriate consistent with the law to press the claims to a final conclusion.”

Judge Nicolas Zambrano, who made the ruling from the provincial town of Lago Agrio, gave Chevron 60 days to set up an escrow account in Ecuador through which the damages would be distributed. Analysts said appeals meant the case probably had years to run but that the oil industry had been dealt a warning to clean up its act.

According to a report by Sweden’s Umeå International School of Public Health more than 30bn gallons of toxic wastes and crude oil had been discharged into the land and waterways of Ecuador’s Amazon basin – or “Oriente”. This compares to the 10.8m gallons spilled in the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989 in Alaska or 205m gallons spilt in BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster. The report claims there are at least two big oil spills per week in the area.

Niger Delta Demands for Justice Undaunted by Decades of Violence, by Ebrima Sillah and Sam Olukoya, IPS Africa

DAKAR and LAGOS, Feb 11 (IPS) – Nigerian environmental rights groups have been making the case for the expulsion of oil companies from the Niger Delta in the southeastern part of the country at the World Social Forum in Dakar.

Speaking at a meeting organised by a group of Nigerian women’s environmental rights activists, Goodison Jim Dorgu, the Executive Director of the NGO Environmental Health and Safety Network, based in the oil-producing state of Bayelsa, said Nigerian civil society has come to the united conclusion that oil companies responsible for severe environmental degradation should leave without delay.

“We feel that the oil companies should leave the shores of the Niger Delta. There have to be fresh negotiations if there has to be oil extraction and communities should be at the dialogue to represent themselves in the negotiations,” said Dorgu.

Dorgu was speaking at a Feb. 9 session at the World Social Forum in Dakar, organised by Nigerian environmental justice activists, mostly women from the oil-rich Niger Delta. Other speakers outlined how the oil industry has provoked violence in the Delta, with women bearing the brunt of the assault.

Emem Okon, the head of the Women’s Development and Resource Centre in the city of Port Harcourt, alleged that the oil companies’ own security personnel have been involved in attacks on women. She also said the Nigerian army had committed grave violations of human rights.

“There are specific cases in Akwa-Ibom State, where Shell brought in a Shell crew and they attacked women. A pregnant woman was shot dead. There are also cases in Ogoniland where the government set up Rivers State Internal Security Task Force, and what these soldiers did was to use women as a weapon of war,” said Okon.

“A lot of women were raped, a lot of young girls were taken into sexual slavery.”

Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind

The Nigerian army’s operations in Ogoni peaked in the mid-1990s, in a brutal response to powerful mobilisation of people which had attracted international attention. Hundreds were killed and tens of thousands displaced; charismatic Ogoni leader Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight others were arrested and later executed by the government. The army carried out similar attacks elsewhere in the oil-rich southeast of the country.

The military campaign shattered non-violent resistance, but gave rise to armed groups whose activities – a mixture of progressive demands and profiteering from kidnapping oil workers and the sale of stolen crude – badly disrupted the country’s oil output.

Speaking to TerraViva from her home in Port Harcourt, Debbie Effiong of the NGO Gender and Development Action, said environmental degradation, poverty, activism and violence are intertwined.

“The environment is part of the livelihood of women; the land sustains them as farmers. Their farmlands are destroyed through oil pollution. So the violence by the military to suppress the people’s cause for environmental justice has prompted a lot of awareness among the women.”

She said that women are keen to take part in the struggle for environmental justice. But the growing role played by armed groups in the Niger Delta complicates matters.

“The violence by militants [the armed groups] affected women’s participation in the struggle for environmental justice at the stage when criminality took over the activities of the militants. The criminal aspect of it did not favour the struggle of women. Some of them lost their husbands, some lost their children, and it affected them emotionally in their quest to continue the struggle.”

The Nigerian government offered a peace deal and amnesty to Delta militants in 2009; most groups accepted. Despite complaints that the government has not held up its end of the bargain – militants again carried out several attacks on oil installations at the end of 2010 – nearly 27,000 young men are now undergoing skills acquisition courses and transformational training on non-violence.

Activists undaunted

It’s too soon to assess the long-term effects of ten years of anarchic violence in the Niger Delta; the call for oil companies to leave indicates that the population has not been intimidated. Effiong says that women too are ready to reclaim a place region’s political life.

“With an increase in the number of women aspiring for political positions – if women are given that chance in the coming elections, I believe there will be a major change positively in the way leadership is run in this country,” she said. “If women are given the opportunity to occupy elected positions, it will definitely enhance the struggle.”

In Dakar, Nnimmo Bassey, the head of Friends of the Earth International, told WSF participants that the struggle for environmental justice in the Niger Delta will be a long one.

“We are doing a lot of grassroots training and mobilisation and there are a lot of new groups coming up,” said Bassey, who is himself from the Niger Delta.

“The regime of responsibility has been so well entrenched and there’s the military backing for what the oil companies are doing, the govenment is behind them.”

Bassey says there are many restrictions. “A lot more work is still going to be done, but one day, when nobody expects it… the people will prevail.”

(END/2011)