Shell in Nigeria

Nigeria one of Africa’s largest countries and its most populous, is situated in West Africa. Nigeria is rich in natural resources including natural gas petroleum, tin, iron ore, coal, limestone, niobium, lead, zinc, timber and extensive arable land. Prior to the discovery of oil in the 1950s, agriculture was the mainstay of the economy, with agricultural produce exported to the more industrialized regions of the world. By 1971 there had been a shift from agriculture to petroleum production.

Oil exports in Nigeria started in the early 1958 after discovering the first commercial oil field at Oloibiri in the Niger Delta in 1956. In those years oil exploration was handled by Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC) accounts for more than 90% of Nigeria's total petroleum production as Shell D’Arcy.

In Ogoniland, Oil exploration commenced in the 1950s and extensive production facilities were established during the following three decades. These operations were also under control of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC).

In spite of its great success in oil production, Nigeria on the other side has been facing consequences on environmental conservation. Tensions arose between the native Ogoni people of the Niger Delta and petroleum industry in the 1990s claiming that very little of the money earned from oil on their land was getting to the people who live there and the environmental damages caused by Shell's practices. In 1993 the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) organized large protests against Shell and the government often occupying the refineries.

In December 2003, Shell Nigeria acknowledged that the conflict in the Niger Delta makes it difficult to operate safely and with integrity and that it intends to improve on its practices.

A UNDP report states that there have been a total of 6,817 oil spills between 1976 and 2001 which account for a loss of three million barrels of oil of which more than 70% was not recovered. Most of these spills occurred off-shore (69%), a quarter was in swamps and 6% spilled on land.
On early 2011 Amnesty International and Friends of the Earth International contested the claims by Shell that up to 98% of all oil spills in Nigeria were due to sabotage. In 1970 an oil spill occurred that affected 255 hectares and the Ejama-Ebubu community in the Rivers State.

Spills in populated areas often spread out over a wide area through contamination of the groundwater and soils during petroleum operations in Nigeria. The consequences were the slow poisoning of the waters, fish population, destruction of vegetation and agricultural land and a large number of accidents, fires and explosions on refining sites claim dozens of lives every year quite apart from the longer-term health effects of ingestion, absorption and inhalation of hydrocarbons.

People in the affected areas complain about health issues including breathing problems and skin lesions. And many have lost basic human rights such as health, access to food, clean water and an ability to work.

In July 2010 the Federal High Court of Nigeria set damages against Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited, SPDC about 100 million US dollars.

At the request of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the United Nations Environment Programme UNEP has conducted an independent assessment of the environment and public health impacts of oil contamination in Ogoniland in the Niger Delta and options for remediation. The study in Ogoniland, Nigeria covers thematic issues of contaminated land, groundwater, surface water and sediments, vegetation, air pollution and public health.

UNEP discovered that Shell and other oil firms systematically contaminated a 1,000 sq km (386 sq mile) area of Ogoniland in the Niger delta with disastrous consequences for human health and wildlife.

Pollution from over 50 years of oil operations in the region has penetrated further and deeper than many may have supposed showing that communities have faced a severe health risk, with some families drinking water with high levels of carcinogens.

In at least 10 Ogoni communities where drinking water is contaminated with high levels of hydrocarbons, public health is seriously threatened. In one community at Nisisioken Ogale in western Ogoniland families are drinking water from wells that is contaminated with benzene.

The oil industry has been a key sector of the Nigerian economy for over 50 years, but many Nigerians have paid a high price.

Some areas, which appear unaffected at the surface, are in reality severely contaminated underground and action to protect human health and reduce the risks to affected communities should occur without delay.

UNEP report suggested that 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. It may require the world’s biggest ever clean-up that could take 20-30 years.

The UN Environment Programme also called for the oil industry and the Nigerian government to contribute $1 billion to a clean-up fund for the region that has been devastated by oil pollution.

UNEP’s hope that the clean-up of Ogoniland will not only address a tragic legacy but also represents a major ecological restoration enterprise with potentially multiple positive effects ranging from bringing the various stakeholders together in a single concerted cause to achieving lasting improvements for the Ogoni people.