Business
Nigeria begins process of seeking damages from Shell resulting from oil spill damage
“The majority of its inhabitants are subsistence fishermen and farmers. Until the two 2008 spills Bodo was a relatively prosperous town based on fishing,” the firm said in a statement. The spills have destroyed the fishing industry and environment there, it said.
“Those communities are still having water shipped into them. But it’s patchy, and we fear many of those communities are drinking from poisoned wells,” Leader, the Leigh Day lawyer, said.
However, Royal Dutch Shell says such estimates are high. According to company spokesman Jonathan French, not all the oil spilled was as a result of the company’s operations and in addition, the company did not have access to the area to clean it up.
The company blames most of the spills in the region on thieves tapping into pipelines to steal crude oil, which ends up on the black market.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press
