Tomorrow is the Shell AGM: the show case of the company’s year. Shell will be under fire from investors over corporate pay, but its record in Nigeria should be the real reason the company is in the spotlight. In the Hague, the main venue for Shell’s main AGM, the oil company’s top brass will be … Read More
Yesterday a campaign was launched, called ShellGuilty. It is intended to stop Shell’s on-going gas flaring in the Niger Delta and to campaign for justice for the Ogoni people. The campaign highlights many of the issues that will come to trial next month in New York, in WiwavShell, including Shell being accused of complicity in … Read More
In what is a truly symbolic victory for the people of the Niger Delta, the oil giant Shell has been ordered to hand over the huge Bonny oil terminal to the local population. Although details are only now becoming public, a high court in Rivers State ruled in July that the site of the Bonny … Read More
Before his death, one of the great and most respected Nigerians of the modern era, Claude Ake, warned about the “militerisation of commerce.” He repeatedly warned against Shell’s use of the military and mobile police force to protect their oil interests in the Delta. In the twelve years since his death, America has increased its … Read More
No let up in the chaos of Nigeria. Rebels from the Niger Delta blew up a Royal Dutch Shell pipeline yesterday, forcing the firm to cut production, helping keep world oil prices near record highs as a consequence. It was carried out while Shell was trying to repair damage caused by a series of similar … Read More
More bad news for Shell in Nigeria. Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua has ordered the state-run oil firm NNPC to recover payment arrears of some $2 billion from Shell and ExxonMobil. The sum supposedly represents outstanding payments on the Production Sharing Contracts (PSC) on the Bonga and Erha oilfields, accounting for about 20 percent of Nigeria’s … Read More
The Niger Delta Rebel group MEND has promised to suspend attacks on US and European oil facilities in Nigeria if former American President Jimmy Carter mediates peace talks. “President Carter represents transparency, impartiality, humility and integrity; four key ingredients critical in the mediator recipe towards ensuring a genuine and enduring peace process for the region,” … Read More
Nigeria, which has been forced to shut in more than half of its oil output following rebel attacks and a workers’ strike, could lose its position as Africa’s top oil exporter to Angola. The cumulative oil production outage for Africa’s most populous nation now amounts to more than 1.3 million barrels per day from its … Read More
Interesting story this one. For fifty years, Shell and Nigeria’s future has been intertwined despite the lethal consequences. But now things are changing. According to press reports, the Nigerian government has withheld up to $1bn as part of a production-sharing agreement while the two sides are locked in talks over how to pay for new … Read More
Nigeria’s plans for the reform of its state oil behemoth will be presented to President Umaru Yar’Adua by the end of April, according to the country’s Oil Minister Odein Ajumogobia. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is a partnership with a series of global oil giants exploiting the world’s eighth largest reserves, which has faced … Read More
