Shell does not care about fines, but they will care about a global boycott....
Read more …Shell does not care about fines, but they will care about a global boycott.
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Nigeria: 'World oil pollution capital'
By Caroline Duffield BBC News, Niger Delta
Visitors to the Nigerian village of Kpor, deep in the Niger Delta, are greeted by strange sights: silver frogs blink from gleaming puddles, sunlight bounces from an eerie black lake, and dragonflies hover over cauldrons of tar.
This is Rivers State, an area abundant in oil and gas. Environmentalists call the Delta the global capital of oil pollution, but unlike the Gulf of Mexico, there are no underwater robots, flotillas of scientists or oil booms here.
On 12 May 2009, Shell's Bomo manifold blew up, leaking massive amounts of crude. Local people say 39 hectares were contaminated. A second leak - from a derelict oil tap - had already been continuously spilling oil for years.
Shell hired a local company to clean up, but the area remains an oil slick
.....Read more at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10313107
Shell in Nigeria: What are the issues?
Natural Gas Flaring
Ken Saro-Wiwa called gas flaring "the most notorious action" of the Shell and Chevron oil companies7. In Ogoniland, 95% of extracted natural gas is flared8 (compared with 0.6% in the United States). It is estimated that the between the CO2 and methane released by gas flaring, Nigerian oil fields are responsible for more global warming effects than the combined oil fields of the rest of the world9.
Oil Spills
Although Shell drills oil in 28 countries, 40% of its oil spills worldwide have occurred in the Niger Delta10. In the Niger Delta, there were 2,976 oil spills between 1976 and 199111. In the 1970s spillage totaled more that four times that of the 1989 Exxon Valdez tragedy12. Ogoniland has had severe problems stemming from oil spillage, including water contamination and loss of many valuable animals and plants. A short-lived World Bank investigation found levels of hydrocarbon pollution in water in Ogoniland more than sixty times US limits13 and a 1997 Project Underground survey found petroleum hydrocarbons one Ogoni village's watersource to be 360 times the levels allowed in the European Community, where Shell originates14.
Pipelines and construction
The 12 by 14 mile area that comprises Ogoniland is some of the most densely occupied land in Africa. The extraction of oil has lead to construction of pipelines and facilities on precious farmland and through villages. Shell and its subcontractors compensate landowners with meager amounts unequal to the value of the scarce land, when they pay at all. The military defends Shell's actions with firearms and death: see the Shell Police section below.
Health impacts
The Nigerian Environmental Study Action Team observed increased "discomfort and misery" due to fumes, heat and combustion gases, as well as increased illnesses15. This destruction has not been alleviated by Shell or the government. Owens Wiwa, a physician, has observed higher rates of certain diseases like bronchial asthma, other respiratory diseases, gastro-enteritis and cancer among the people in the area as a result of the oil industry16.
Read more at http://www.essentialaction.org/shell/issues.html
UN to Exonerate Shell From Pollution in Niger Delta
23 August 2010
Lagos — A three-year probe by the United Nations will almost entirely acquit Royal Dutch Shell for 40 years of oil contamination in the Niger Delta, eliciting rage among communities who have long campaigned to force the multinational to clean up its spills and pay compensation.
The $10m investigation by the UN environment programme (UNEP), paid for by Shell, will say that only 10 per cent of oil pollution in Ogoniland has been caused by equipment failures and company negligence, and concludes that the rest has come from local people illegally stealing oil and sabotaging company pipelines, the Guardian of London reported yesterday.
The shock disclosure was made by Mike Cowing, the head of a UN team of 100 people who have been studying environmental damage in the region.
Cowing said that the 300 known oil spills in the Ogoniland region of the Delta caused massive damage, but added that 90 per cent of the spills had been caused by "bunkering" gangs trying to steal oil....
His comments, in a briefing in Geneva last week, have caused deep offence among the families of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the eight other Ogoni leaders who were hanged by the Nigerian government in 1995 after a peaceful uprising against Shell's pollution.
With 606 oil fields, the Niger Delta supplies 40 per cent of the crude oil imported by the US . Life expectancy in its rural communities, half of which have no access to clean water, has fallen to little more than 40 over the past two generations.
.....Read more at http://allafrica.com/stories/201008230248.html
