Yet more evidence that Shell is still at heart of the vortex of violence that continues in the Niger Delta. Platform, the oil industry watchdog which is based in London, has released a great briefing paper, called Dirty Work, which examines Shell’s security spending in Nigeria. The story is covered in today’s Guardian newspaper. The … Read More
African oil
Nigeria: Shell to Pay $5 Billion Fine?
Finally after fifty years of the Nigerian government playing softly, softly with Shell, is the country about to start playing hard-ball with the oil giant? The country’s oil regulator has asked Shell to pay a whopping $5 billion fine for a spill off the country’s southern coast last December. Late last year there was a … Read More
Nigeria Loses $1 Billion a Month in Oil Theft
Reports coming out of Nigeria this morning are that the country’s President Goodluck Jonathan has sacked senior oil officials from the state oil company NNPC in the interests of “greater transparency and accountability.” Jonathan has come under intense pressure to clean up the country’s oil industry. We have known for a while that theft and … Read More
70,000 Ask Shell to Clean Up in Nigeria
Seventeen years ago I was one of many protestors at Shell’s AGM in London at the prestigious Queen Elisabeth Centre that lies in the shadow of Big Ben, near London’s Parliament. There were two issues facing the oil giant that day: in Nigeria the Ogoni playwright, Ken Saro-Wiwa, lay in a disgusting and degrading humid … Read More
Africa’s New Scramble for Gas
Some twenty five years ago when Amoco were exploring for oil offshore Somalia, the company was convinced that the waters of East Africa contained vast reserves of oil and gas. But its exploration was unsuccessful, Somalia was ripped apart by civil war and the waters of East Africa, once the tranquil domain of dhows and … Read More
Shell Should be Guilty Again
Although the BP / Deepwater Horizon trial maybe hogging the headlines, another courtroom battle is equally intriguing and important. It is almost 3 years since the trial of Wiwa versus Shell settled for $15.5 million on the eve of the trial. Along with the Wiwa action, there was a parallel legal case, Kiobel Versus Shell, … Read More
Shell Guilty Again?
Just over two years after the Wiwa versus Shell case was settled in a New York Court room, the US Supreme Court has given approval for another ground-breaking legal case against Shell to be heard. The lawsuit will consider whether corporations can be sued in U.S. courts for allegedly aiding human-rights abuses overseas. Amazingly, the … Read More
Nigeria: Shell’s New Human Rights Abuses
Often the story of Shell’s atrocities in Nigeria has focused on its complicity in the death of the Ogoni Ken Saro-Wiwa, or the human rights abuses that were committed in the mid-nineties. But now a great new report from the oil industry watch-dog Platform, and published in coalition with a number of NGOs, has looked … Read More
Lockerbie: It was Freedom for Oil
One of the greatest shocks for many over the last few days has been just how cosy the relationship was between the secret security services, CIA and M16 and the Gaddafi regime. Just days before the Americans and British backed the rebels in bombing Gaddafi, his senior officials were saying their intervention would not happen … Read More
To the Victors go the Spoils
Was the western intervention in Libya primarily driven by oil? The answer depends on who you ask, but as usual, in the volatile mix of international politics, oil is never far from the surface. It certainly helps the case of those countries that are vying for a piece of the Libyan oil pie that they … Read More
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