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Nigeria agencies seek $11.5 billion compensation from Shell for oil spill damage
Environmental Damage caused by past oil spill in Nigeria. PHOTO/File
(Reuters) – Two Nigerian government agencies told a parliamentary hearing on Thursday that Royal Dutch Shell should pay a total of US$11.5 billion in compensation for damage caused by an oil spill at its offshore Bonga field in December 2011.
Shell has said that there is no legal basis for the proposed fines and the Nigerian government has never publicly charged foreign oil companies large sums for oil spills.
The Nigerian parliament can recommend fines the government should impose on oil companies but it has no power to enforce them.
The National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) told parliament, Shell should pay US$5 billion as a fine for environmental damage caused from a 40,000 barrel spill on Dec. 20, 2011 at the Bonga offshore rig.
The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) sought US$6.5 billion as compensation for 100 communities it says were affected onshore by the oil spill, which was one of the biggest in the history of Africa’s largest energy industry.
Shell has taken responsibility for the Bonga offshore oil spill but says onshore damage was the result of a different spill a few days later that wasn’t its fault. It said it has cleaned up areas affected by both spills.
“We are going to do post-impact assessment to determine the effect on the environment. By May the contractor would get to the site and by the third quarter of the year the job would be concluded,” Chike Onyejekwe, managing director of Shell’s offshore Nigeria unit told lawmakers.
