Shell accepts liability for two oil spills in Nigeria

By John Vidal

Wednesday 3 August 2011

Reposted from guardian.co.uk

Oil giant faces a bill of hundreds of millions of dollars following class action suit brought on behalf of communities in Bodo, Ogoniland

The impact of an oil spill near Ikarama in the Niger delta. Photograph: Amnesty International UK

Shell faces a bill of hundreds of millions of dollars after accepting full liability for two massive oil spills that devastated a Nigerian community of 69,000 people and may take at least 20 years to clean up.

Experts who studied video footage of the spills at Bodo in Ogoniland say they could together be as large as the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska, when 10m gallons of oil destroyed the remote coastline.

Until now, Shell has claimed that less than 40,000 gallons were spilt in Nigeria.

Papers seen by the Guardian show that following a class action suit in London over the past four months, the company has accepted responsibility for the 2008 double rupture of the Bodo-Bonny trans-Niger pipeline that pumps 120,000 barrels of oil a day though the community.

Ogoniland is a small region of the Niger delta which threw out Shell in 1994 for its pollution but then saw eight of its leaders, including the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa, executed by the government.

The crude oil that gushed unchecked from the two Bodo spills, which occurred within months of each other, in 2008 has clearly devastated the 20 sq km network of creeks and inlets on which Bodo and as many as 30 other smaller settlements depend for food, water and fuel.

No attempt has been made to clean up the oil, which has collected on the creek sides, washes in and out on the tides and has seeped deep into the water table and farmland.

According to the communities in Bodo, in two years the company has only offered £3,500 together with 50 bags of rice, 50 bags of beans and a few cartons of sugar, tomatoes and groundnut oil. The offers were rejected as “insulting, provocative and beggarly” by the chiefs of Bodo, but later accepted on legal advice.

Shell’s acceptance of full liability for the spills follows a class action suit bought on behalf of communities by London law firm Leigh Day and Co, which represented the Ivory Coast community that suffered health damage following the dumping of toxic waste by a ship leased to multinational oil company Trafigura in 2006.

Many other impoverished communities in the delta are now expected to seek damages for oil pollution against Shell in the British courts. On average, there are three oil spills a day by Shell and other companies working in the delta. Shell consistently blames the spills on local youths who, they argue, sabotage their network of pipelines.

“The news that Shell has accepted liability in Britain will be greeted with joy in the delta. The British courts may now be inundated with legitimate complaints,” said Patrick Naagbartonm, coordinator for the Centre of Environment and Human Rights in Port Harcourt.

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Congress needs to end its dependence on all special interest money

by David Donnelly, national campaigns director for Public Campaign Action Fund, and Steve Kretzmann, executive director of Oil Change International – 08/02/11

Reposted from The Hill

Noticeably absent from this week’s debt ceiling deal between President Obama and Congressional Republicans were the billions in taxpayer subsidies Congress continues to dole out to Big Oil, despite overwhelming support among Americans to end these handouts and in the face of staggering oil company profits released last week. When it came to taking on Big Oil, Congress and the Obama administration blinked.

Cutting Medicare for low and middle-income seniors? On the table. Closing loopholes for profitable, multinational corporations? Not under discussion.

The world’s largest oil companies announced another round of billion dollar profits last week. BP made $5.6 billion. Shell got even more, with over $8 billion. And ExxonMobil’s profits were $10.7 billion – an astounding $117 million a day from April to June. Gas prices are still at record levels and everyday taxpayers are footing the bill for billions of dollars in wasteful subsidies these companies get every year. Big Oil is making big profits—and the American people are paying the price. In fact, we’re paying it twice – once when we fill up our tanks and once when we pay taxes.

And while the 12-member “Super Congress” that will be appointed as part of the deal would technically put cuts to these subsidies on the table, you can bet oil companies will harness their significant political clout to keep their free money. With just 12 members to focus on—instead of 535–that pressure might be even stronger.

Why do these oil companies have so much sway? Just follow the money. A recent report from Public Campaign Action Fund and the League of Conservation Voters found that 93.5 percent (159 of 170) of U.S. House members who received campaign contributions from the political action committees (PACs) of the largest oil companies in the first half of the year voted to maintain these wasteful subsidies. And the three top Republicans in the House – House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), and House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) – received a combined $96,000 in dirty energy money from these PACs in the first six months of the year alone.

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photo – Washington DC – Capitol Hill: United States Capitol, by wallyg  Available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial license. 

By ThinkProgress War Room, Jul 6, 2011

Reprinted from Think Progress from the Center for American Progress

GOP Tax Giveaway of the Day: Big Oil Subsidies

Oil from a ruptured ExxonMobil pipeline is coursing through the picturesque Yellowstone River as we speak, but Big Oil’s real gusher is located on Capitol Hill. Big Oil’s best friends in Congress make sure that year after year, billions of dollars in taxpayer funds flow into the coffers of the most profitable companies the world has ever known. In return, Big Oil spends millions each year to make sure that its friends keep their seats.

Here’s why it’s time to make the easiest of all choices — the one to end taxpayer-funded giveaways to Big Oil.

WHAT: Wasteful and unnecessary taxpayer subsidies for oil companies

HOW MUCH THEY WASTE: $77 BILLION from 2011-2021

WHO BENEFITS: Oil companies large and small, including the five largest oil companies who raked in $32 BILLION in profits in just the first quarter of 2011. ExxonMobil alone made nearly $11 billion in profits during the first quarter of this year.

WHO ELSE BENEFITS: Big Oil’s friends in Congress benefit from millions in campaign cash from the oil and gas industry. During the 2010 election cycle alone, the oil and gas industry pumped more than $21 MILLION into congressional campaign accounts — more than three-quarters of which went to Republicans. These same Republicans have voted repeatedly — and nearly unanimously — in favor of keeping oil subsidies over the past several months. In addition to lavish spending on direct campaign contributions, the oil and gas industry also spent a whopping $145 MILLION last year to lobby Congress.

DINNER TABLE FAST FACTS:

The average American pays an effective federal income tax rate of 20.4 percent, while ExxonMobil had an effective tax rate of just 17.6 percent over the past three years. That is of course far below the statutory corporate tax rate of 35 percent.
Even Big Oil CEOs themselves admit that they don’t need the subsidies. ConocoPhillips CEO Jim Mulva told Congress: “With respect to oil and gas exploration and production, we do not need incentives.”

IN ONE SENTENCE: Instead of ending Medicare to pay for more tax breaks for millionaires, billionaires, and huge corporations, we need to end the billions in taxpayer giveaways to Big Oil.

Full article

‘Nigeria loses 300,000 barrels of oil daily’, by Roseline Okere, The Guardian Nigeria, Monday, 04 July 2011

Former Special Adviser to the President on Petroleum Matters, Dr. Emmanuel Egbogah, photo: The Guardian Nigeria

DPR raises concern over depleting reserves

DESPITE efforts of the Federal Government   to check some cartels that are involved in oil theft, especially in the Niger Delta, their activities are costing the nation 300,000 barrels per day (bpd).

The government is losing this amount of the natural resource at a time that the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) has expressed the need to search for new oil deposits in order to boost depleting reserves.

The former Special Adviser to the President on Petroleum Matters, Dr. Emmanuel Egbogah, told The Guardian that government was aware of the situation and would ensure that those who were involved in the theft were brought to book.

He stated:  “Oil theft in the Niger Delta is a very serious matter.  The government has been combating them with military personnel.  The amount of oil they steal is about 300,000 bpd. This is not good at all for the economy.  These people are supported by big cartels of international agencies. They sell this oil cheaply. The government is doing all it can to put a stop to this huge lose. The government is interested in elimination them.”

In 2009, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) Limited disclosed that Nigeria lost about $1.5 billion yearly to crude oil theft.

“Criminal gangs continue to steal oil from our pipelines at an estimated rate of 100,000 barrels a day. Theft and illegal refining cause extensive environmental damage. Sabotage and theft together accounted for more than 80 per cent of the spill volume from SPDC facilities in 2010”, Chairman/Managing Director of SPDC, Mutiu Sunmonu said.

WikiLeaks said recently that a United States diplomatic cable quoting a Nigerian official showed that a member of a government panel on troubles in the nation’s Niger Delta implicated some top political leaders as being the biggest forces behind the theft.

It claimed that the theft also fueled arms sales to the restive region while causing environmental damage and cutting production in a nation crucial to U.S. oil supplies.

Full article

Emem Okon spoke for the women of the Niger Delta to Chevron shareholders on May 25, 2011. After the meeting, she came out to speak to the crowd rallying to support her and others who had traveled from locations around the world impacted by Chevron’s practices. Hear her response to what Chevron had to say.

Disband JTF now, N’Delta monarchs urge Jonathan, by Daniel Abia (P’Harcourt) and Harris-Okon Emmanuel (Warri), Daily Independent, May 18, 2011

Traditional Rulers from the Oil Mineral Producing Communities of the Niger Delta region (TROMPCON) have called on President Goodluck Jonathan to re-examine the activities of the Joint Task Force (JTF) operating in the Niger Delta region.

JTF of the Nigerian Military Photo credit: Tribune.com.ng

The call was the outcome of a two-day meeting in Port Harcourt and contained in a communiqué jointly signed by Eze Young Ogbonna and Pere Stanley Perediegha Luke, National President and National Secretary respectively

The group also urged the Federal Government to overhaul the National Youths Service Corps (NYSC) programme considering the recent post election violence in some parts of the North, which resulted in the death of at least ten corps members of southern origin.

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