Shell Says Wins U.K. Court Ruling in Nigerian Oil Spills Case
BloombergBusinessweek article by Jeremy Hodge published Friday 20 June 2014
A Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) subsidiary said it won a preliminary ruling in a U.K. court against thousands of Nigerians who say their land, rivers and wetlands were spoiled by two oil spills in the Niger River delta in 2008.
Judge Robert Akenhead ruled today that a Nigerian law, the Oil Pipelines Act, is adequate for compensating for spills, limiting the scope of the U.K. litigation to an assessment of actual damages caused, the company said in a statement today.
The lawsuit against Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary was filed by residents of the coastal Bodo community in 2012 after two spills on the Bomu-Bonny Pipeline in 2008, Shell said.
“From the outset, we’ve accepted responsibility for the two deeply regrettable operational spills in Bodo,” Mutiu Sunmonu, managing director of the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd., said in the statement. “We want to compensate fairly and quickly those who have been genuinely affected and to clean up all areas where oil has been spilled from our facilities.”
Lawyers representing the 15,000 Nigerians also claimed a victory from the ruling today, saying that Shell could be found liable at trial for theft from its pipelines if it failed to take “reasonable steps to protect its infrastructure,” the law firm Leigh Day & Co. said in an e-mailed statement.
There is evidence 1,000 hectares of mangroves have been destroyed by the spills, the law firm said.
“We hope the community will now direct their U.K. legal representatives to stop wasting even more time pursuing enormously exaggerated claims and consider sensible and fair compensation offers,” Sunmonu said.
A trial is scheduled for May 2015.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jeremy Hodges in London atjhodges17@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net; Will Kennedy atwkennedy3@bloomberg.net Lindsay Fortado, Will Kennedy
Joint call for inquiry into Corrib policing
Extracts from an Irish Times article by Lorna Siggins published 20 June 2014
Social justice campaigner Fr Peter McVerry, Lord Mayor of Dublin Christy Burke, four TDs, one Senator and seven academics are signatories to a petition for an independent inquiry into policing of the north Mayo Shell/Corrib gas dispute.
Transparency International chief executive John Devitt, Garda whistleblower John Wilson, former UN assistant secretary generalDenis Halliday and film-maker Lelia Doolan have also signed the petition, supported by five non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and 31 public figures.
The petition to Government notes that the UN Human Rights Commission, South African archbishop Desmond Tutu and NGOs including Amnesty International, Frontline, Table and Global Community Monitor have already issued similar calls.
Other signatories to the petition include Dr Vicky Conway, Kent Law School senior lecturer and Irish Times columnist Vincent Browne.
The petition says that an investigation should look at the relationship between the Garda and Shell and between the Garda and private security company Integrated Risk Management Services, employed for the Corrib project.
Shell signs surveillance deal with Ogoni, denies plot to resume oil production
Extracts from TheGuardian (Nigeria) article by Kelvin Ebiri published 19 June 2014
SHELL Petroleum Development Company has said its signing of multimillion dollar pipeline surveillance contract with some Ogoni communities in Rivers State, is not a plot to resume oil production there. The company which was forced to shut its operational activities in Ogoni in 1993 following an uprising by local communities protesting against environmental degradation, said the implementation of the United Nations Environment Programme on Ogoni is being handled by the Federal Government of Nigeria.
The Real Reason Shell Halted Its Ukrainian Shale Operations
Extract from an OilPrice.com article by Igor Alexeev published 19 June 2014
Royal Dutch Shell has blamed air strikes by the government in Kiev against its own citizens in southern Ukraine as the reason it decided to declare a halt to its shale oil projects in the troubled region. In reality, the truth may be closer to the fact that company is disappointed with the economic viability of what it once thought was a large shale deposit and is looking for a way out. According to a recent statement by the former head of Royal Dutch Shell, Peter Voser, “the company is now analyzing its business in shale,” which, translated from the streamlined language of press releases, means: The project is not earning its keep and we need to do something (Read: write off expenses).
The TRUTH will set you FREE.
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