Nigerians seek $1 billion from Shell for oil spills

By Mira Oberman | AFP – Thu, Oct 20, 2011

Re-posted from AFP

A Nigerian tribal king filed a lawsuit in a US court seeking $1 billion from Royal Dutch Shell to compensate for decades of pollution that sickened his people and damaged their lands, his lawyer said.

The suit was filed a day after the US Supreme Court said it will consider a lawsuit accusing Shell of human rights abuses in Nigeria in a landmark case that could make companies liable for torture or genocide committed overseas.

That case will assess the potential liability of corporations — including multinationals with a US presence — under the Alien Tort Statute, a US law dating back to 1789 that scholars say was meant to assure foreign governments that the United States would help prevent breaches of international law.

The latest case alleges that Shell’s Nigerian operations are “well below internationally recognized standards to prevent and control pipeline oil spills” because the Anglo-Dutch company “has not employed the best available technology and practices that they use elsewhere in the world.”

It cited a recent United Nations report that found that contamination was widespread in the Nigerian Delta after 50 years of oil extraction left groundwater badly contaminated and the soil soaked with hydrocarbons to depths of five meters.

The suit was brought on behalf of the people of Ogale in the Eleme local government area, where the UN team found the most serious groundwater contamination and people drinking water laced with cancer-causing benzene at 900 times World Health Organization guidelines.

Scientists found an eight centimeter layer of refined oil floating on the groundwater that served the wells. The oil was linked to a spill that had occurred six years earlier and was not properly cleaned up.

Full article

photo credit: © Kadir van Lohuizen/NOOR

From the website of Amnesty International: http://blog.amnestyusa.org/business/shell-accused-over-misleading-figures-on-nigeria-oil-spills/

Amnesty International Press Release
For Immediate Release
Thursday, August 4, 2011

Amnesty International, Responding to United Nations Report on Disastrous Oil Pollution in Nigeria, Demands Accountability from Shell Oil Company

Reposted from Amnesty International

Urges Institutional Investors to Urge Shell To “Clean Up Its Act” in Niger Delta

Contact: Suzanne Trimel, 212-633-4150, strimel@aiusa.org

(New York) – Amnesty International said today that Shell oil company has had a disastrous impact on the human rights of people living in the Niger Delta and must be held to account.  The organization was responding to a United Nations report – the first of its kind in Nigeria — on the severe and widespread effects of oil pollution in Ogoniland in the Delta region.

The report from the United Nations Environment Program is based on two years of in-depth scientific research. It found that oil contamination is widespread and severe, and that people in the Niger Delta have been exposed for decades.

“This report proves Shell has had a terrible impact in Nigeria, but has got away with denying it for decades, falsely claiming they work to best international standards,” said Amnesty International Global Issues Director, Audrey Gaughran, who has researched the human rights impacts of pollution in the Delta and is the author of a groundbreaking 2009 report, “Petroleum, Pollution and Poverty in the Niger Delta.”

The U.N. report, which was conducted at the request of the Nigerian government and paid for by Shell, provides irrefutable evidence of the devastating impact of oil pollution on people’s lives in the Delta – one of Africa’s most bio-diverse regions.  It examines the damage to agriculture and fisheries, which has destroyed livelihoods and food sources. One of the most serious facts to come to light is the scale of contamination of drinking water, which has exposed communities to serious health risks. In one case water was found to contain a known carcinogen at levels 900 times above World Health Organization guidelines. The U.N. Environment Program has recommended emergency measures to alert communities to the danger.

“This report should also be a wake-up call to institutional investors. In the past they’ve allowed Shell’s public relations machine to pull the wool over their eyes, but they will now want to see the company cleaning up its act in the Niger Delta – that means putting real pressure on Shell to avoid spillages, compensate those already affected and disclose more accurate information on their impacts,” said Gaughran.

The report reveals Shell’s systemic failure to address oil spills going back many years and  describes how sites that Shell claimed were cleaned up were found by UNEP experts to be still polluted.

Full press release

UNEP Ogoniland Oil Assessment Reveals Extent of Environmental Contamination and Threats to Human Health

Reposted from United Nations Environment Programme
Ogoniland, Nigeria

Read full UNEP Environmental Assessment of Ogoniland

Abuja, 4 August 2011 – The environmental restoration of Ogoniland could prove to be the world’s most wide-ranging and long term oil clean-up exercise ever undertaken if contaminated drinking water, land, creeks and important ecosystems such as mangroves are to be brought back to full, productive health.

A major new independent scientific assessment, carried out by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), shows that pollution from over 50 years of oil operations in the region has penetrated further and deeper than many may have supposed.

The assessment has been unprecedented. Over a 14-month period, the UNEP team examined more than 200 locations, surveyed 122 kilometres of pipeline rights of way, reviewed more than 5,000 medical records and engaged over 23,000 people at local community meetings.

Detailed soil and groundwater contamination investigations were conducted at 69 sites, which ranged in size from 1,300 square metres (Barabeedom-K.dere, Gokana local government area (LGA) to 79 hectares (Ajeokpori-Akpajo, Eleme LGA).

Altogether more than 4,000 samples were analyzed, including water taken from 142 groundwater monitoring wells drilled specifically for the study and soil extracted from 780 boreholes…

…Next Steps Recommendations

Through a combination of approaches, individual contaminated land areas in Ogoniland can be cleaned up within five years, while the restoration of heavily-impacted mangrove stands and swamplands will take up to 30 years.

However, according to the report, all sources of ongoing contamination must be brought to an end before the clean-up of the creeks, sediments and mangroves can begin.

The report recommends establishing three new institutions in Nigeria to support a comprehensive environmental restoration exercise.

A proposed Ogoniland Environmental Restoration Authority would oversee implementation of the study’s recommendations and should be set up during a Transition Phase which UNEP suggests should begin as soon as possible.

The Authority’s activities should be funded by an Environmental Restoration Fund for Ogoniland, to be set up with an initial capital injection of US$1 billion contributed by the oil industry and the government, to cover the first five years of the clean-up project.

A recommended Integrated Contaminated Soil Management Centre, to be built in Ogoniland and supported by potentially hundreds of mini treatment centres, would treat contaminated soil and provide hundreds of job opportunities.

The report also recommends creating a Centre of Excellence in Environmental Restoration in Ogoniland to promote learning and benefit other communities impacted by oil contamination in the Niger Delta and elsewhere in the world.

Reforms of environmental government regulation, monitoring and enforcement, and improved practices by the oil industry are also recommended in the report.

Full article

image: UNEP Environmental Assessment of Ogoniland

Public meetings staged throughout Ogoniland during each phase of the study helped to build understanding of UNEP’s project and to foster community participation,

From our friends at Platform and their Remember Saro Wiwa program:

remember saro-wiwa UNEP Report: Analysis & action Following coverage in The Guardian today of UNEP’s outrageous decision to “exonerate” Shell over oil spills in Nigeria, we present analysis of this controversial issue. Read on and take action below. Global Outrage at UN Report The UNEP’s report is in direct conflict with local environmentalists and communities who have witnessed and monitored spills for many years. We take a look at the manipulative PR and politics behind Shell’s ‘exoneration’. Read more. What’s Shell & UNEP Trying to Hide? Any child educated in Nigeria knows that oil was discovered in Oloibiri, Nigeria in 1956, and that the history of oil spills is almost as long. So why does UNEP think otherwise? Read more. More Harm Than Good? There are some things the debate over oil spills in Nigeria cannot change. Shell must clean up all oil spills. But the UNEP could undermine the pressure on Shell to take action. Read more. Take Action You can help hold Shell to account: email Mike Cowing , (head of the UNEP study) and cut and paste the following questions. Please personalise, share and add your own views. 1. Why has the UNEP decided to echo Shell’s widely disputed analysis of the number and causes of oil spills in Ogoni? 2. How does UNEP justify announcing its findings on the causes of oil spills when this is not the subject of the study? 3. Why does UNEP claim that oil spills in the Niger Delta have been occurring for only 9 years? 4. What guarantees can UNEP give that its study will not be subject to undue influence from either Shell or the Nigerian government, since both are funding the project?

Read the reaction to UNEP’s report on JINN ally website remember saro-wiwa

By Ben Amunwa on August 24, 2010

Today Amnesty International joined the chorus of disapproval and outrage at UNEP’s decision to clear Shell of all responsibility for oil spills in Nigeria. UNEP has been widely criticised for recently using Shell data to announce that the company is only 10% responsible for the causes of oil spills.

“Relying on these figures would be a serious misjudgement, with potentially significant ramifications for those living in the Niger Delta,” said Audrey Gaughran, Director of Amnesty International’s Global Thematic Issues Program. “UNEP must be aware that the figures have been strongly challenged for years by environmental groups and communities. They are totally lacking in credibility.”

Amnesty went on to highlight how UNEP’s use of Shell data raises serious anomalies:

Between 1989 and 1994 Shell itself estimated that only 28 percent of oil spilt in the Niger Delta was caused by sabotage. In 2007 Shell’s estimate had risen to 70 per cent. The figure now given by Shell has increased to more than 90 per cent. Amnesty International has repeatedly asked Shell to produce evidence to support these figures. Shell has been unable to do so.

Friends of the Earth International, the worlds largest network of environmentalists, also condemned UNEP’s uncritical announcement of the disputed Shell data. Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Friends the Earth International and director of Environmental Rights Action in Nigeria said:

We monitor spills regularly and our observations often contradict information produced by oil companies and Nigerian regulatory agencies. If the UNEP team would ask community monitors it would avoid falling into the trap of spinning Shell’s figures. The UN assessment is being paid for by Shell so we are not surprised that it tells Shell’s version of the facts. But the reality is that several studies have placed the bulk of the blame for oil spills in the Niger Delta on the doorsteps of the oil companies; particularly Shell.

Link to article on .