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Nigeria: Villagers reject Shell oil spill compensation offer
“The settlement figures are totally derisory and insulting to these villagers,” he added.
The Nigerian villagers launched a suit against Shell at the High Court in London in March 2012, seeking billions of dollars in compensation for two oil spills in 2008, but both sides agreed to try and settle in compensation talks in Port Harcourt. Shell accepts responsibility for the Bodo spills but the two sides disagree about the volume spilt and the number of local people who lost their livelihoods as a result.
Citing independent experts, Leigh Day says up to 600,000 barrels of crude were spilt, which would make it one of the worst in history. The volume spilt in Alaska in the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster was put at 257,000 barrels. But Shell, citing a report by a joint investigative team not controlled by the firm, puts the volume spilt in the two original incidents at just 4,100 barrels.
Shell accepts that a significantly higher volume of oil was spilt later but says this was due to other factors including sabotage. It has complained that its clean-up teams were at times denied access to sites by local groups.
The Niger Delta has for years been plagued by a range of problems including environmental degradation, theft of crude from pipelines, and conflict between communities over clean-up contracts or compensation deals.
