By Elisha Bala-Gbogbo
Abuja (Bloomberg) -- Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Eni SpA (click here) may have misled regulators in Nigeria by wrongly attributing oil spills to theft and sabotage in order to avoid paying compensation to affected communities, rights group Amnesty International said.
“Amnesty International researchers have identified that at least 89 spills may have been wrongly labeled as theft or sabotage when in fact they were caused by ‘operational’ faults,” the London-based group said in a report released on Thursday. “Of these, 46 are from Shell and 43 are from Eni. If confirmed, this would mean that dozens of affected communities have not received the compensation that they deserve.”
Shell and Eni, along with ExxonMobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and Total SA operate joint ventures with state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. that pump most of the crude of Africa’s biggest producer. In the southern Niger River delta, which is home to the country’s oil and gas industry, local communities are frequently in conflict with energy companies over allegations of pollution and environmental degradation....
Visitors to the Nigerian village of Kpor, (click here) deep in the Niger Delta, are greeted by strange sights: silver frogs blink from gleaming puddles, sunlight bounces from an eerie black lake, and dragonflies hover over cauldrons of tar.
This is Rivers State, an area abundant in oil and gas. Environmentalists call the Delta the global capital of oil pollution, but unlike the Gulf of Mexico, there are no underwater robots, flotillas of scientists or oil booms here.
On 12 May 2009, Shell's Bomo manifold blew up, leaking massive amounts of crude. Local people say 39 hectares were contaminated. A second leak - from a derelict oil tap - had already been continuously spilling oil for years.
Shell hired a local company to clean up, but the area remains an oil slick....
