Business
Oil Leak forces Shell to shutdown Nigerian oilfield
The United Nations (UN) released a report in August saying decades of oil spills in the Nigerian region of Ogoniland may require the biggest clean-up ever undertaken, with communities dependent upon farmers and fishermen left ravaged.
Shell’s Nigerian joint venture was taken to task in the UN report, which said its procedures for control and maintenance of infrastructure had not been followed. Oil spills had also not been sufficiently cleaned, according to the report.
Amnesty International has estimated that if all types of oil pollution in the vast Niger Delta, the country’s oil-producing region, are added up over the past half-century, it would be “on par with the Exxon Valdez every year over the last 50 years.”
Production in Nigeria has rebounded in recent years following a 2009 amnesty deal for militants in the delta which led to a sharp decline in unrest there.
Militants claiming to be fighting for a fairer distribution of oil revenue as well as criminal gangs had carried out years of attacks and kidnappings in the region.
According to OPEC’s 2010 figures, Nigeria overtook Iran as the cartel’s second-largest crude exporter.
Copyright 2011 AFP.
