Shell to pay $110m to end 30-year Nigeria oil spill case
Royal Dutch Shell’s Nigerian unit agreed to pay a community in the West African country more than $110-million to resolve a long-running dispute over an oil spill that occurred more than 50 years ago.
The Anglo-Dutch energy giant will pay the Ejama-Ebubu people 45.7-billion naira ($110.9-million) in compensation to put an end to a legal case that began in 1991, the community’s lawyer Lucius Nwosu said by phone. Shell approached a court in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, on Wednesday to disclose the development, he said.
The payment “is for full and final satisfaction” of a court judgment issued against the company 11 years ago, a spokesman for Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary said by email.
The origin of the community’s grievance against Shell dates back to a rupture in one of the firm’s pipelines in 1970. Shell said it maintains that the environmental damage was caused by “third parties” during a civil war that was raging at the time. While the joint venture that Shell operates “does not accept responsibility or liability for these spills, the affected sites in the Ebubu community were fully remediated,” the company said.
In 2010, a federal court ordered Shell to pay 17-billion naira to the community. The oil major unsuccessfully challenged the decision on multiple occasions, including most recently at the Supreme Court in November. In March 2020, a judge in a related court case said that, with interest accrued, Shell’s debt stood at nearly 183-billion naira by January 2019 – a valuation the company vehemently contested.
In February, Shell initiated arbitration proceedings against the Nigerian government at the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes following its unsuccessful attempts to overturn the 2010 ruling. Shell didn’t say in its statement if it will withdraw the claim.
Shell will pay the agreed sum within 21 days, Nwosu said.
Comments
Research Reports
Projects
Latest Multimedia
Latest News
Showroom
Avlock International is a leading manufacturer and distributor of Specialized Fastening Systems.
VISIT SHOWROOM
Rooted in the hearts of South Africans, combining technology and a quest for perfection to bring you a battery of peerless standing. Willard...
VISIT SHOWROOM
Announcements
What's On
Subscribe to improve your user experience...
Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):
Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):
All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors
including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.
Already a subscriber?
Forgotten your password?
Receive weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine (print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
➕
Recieve daily email newsletters
➕
Access to full search results
➕
Access archive of magazine back copies
➕
Access to Projects in Progress
➕
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA
R4500 (equivalent of R375 a month)
SUBSCRIBEAll benefits from Option 1
➕
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports on various industrial and mining sectors, in PDF format, including on:
Electricity
➕
Water
➕
Energy Transition
➕
Hydrogen
➕
Roads, Rail and Ports
➕
Coal
➕
Gold
➕
Platinum
➕
Battery Metals
➕
etc.
Receive all benefits from Option 1 or Option 2 delivered to numerous people at your company
➕
Multiple User names and Passwords for simultaneous log-ins
➕
Intranet integration access to all in your organisation
