Shell on Thursday said it had launched a review of its oil and gas
assets in Nigeria’s massively polluted Ogoniland region, resuming work
in the area two decades after unrest forced the company to pull out.
The
Anglo-Dutch oil major said the move was not part of an attempt to
restart oil production in Ogoniland, describing it instead as a bid to
comply with a 2011 UN report that called for one of the world’s biggest
ever environmental clean-ups.
“The intention is to determine the
state of our facilities since we suspended operations in the area in
1993, and determine how best to decommission them,” the head of Shell
Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC), Mutiu Sunmonu, said in a
statement.
Spokesman Precious Okolobo told AFP the review was “a
key step” in complying with the United Nations Environmental Programme
report, which detailed the devastating impact that decades of oil
pollution had brought to the southern region.
The report called
for the oil industry and the Nigerian government to contribute $1
billion (762 million euros) to a clean-up fund for the region, adding
that restoration could take up to 30 years.
Among the most
condemned episodes in Ogoniland’s past was the 1995 execution of
renowned environmental activist Ken Saro Wiwa under the regime of
dictator Sani Abacha. Wiwa had fiercely criticised Shell before his
death.
His brother, Harry Wiwa, told AFP Thursday that Shell could be welcomed back to the region after the two-decade absence.
“If
the purpose is to clean the spills, they are welcome but UNEP should
supervise the exercise… The problem we have with Shell is that it is not
socially responsible,” said Wiwa, an activist with the Movement for the
Survival of the Ogoni People.
Okolobo said the company has sent
community outreach staff to the region in recent years, but the review
exercise marks the first time oil and gas workers have been to Ogoniland
since the pull-out.
The firm still controls at least seven oil
fields in the area, as well as flowstations, gas plants and pipelines,
according to the SPDC statement.
Nigeria’s is Africa’s top oil
producer, but the country remains deeply impoverished, partly due to
massive corruption in the energy sector.
Culled from PM News
No comments:
Post a Comment