Date: 2024-11-23 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00005940
BIG OIL ... SHELL
ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION IN NIGERIA
The Lies Shell is Telling About Oil Spills in the Niger Delta
Amnesty International accuses Shell of false claims about
its environmental impact in the Niger delta
ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION IN NIGERIA
The Lies Shell is Telling About Oil Spills in the Niger Delta
Amnesty International accuses Shell of false claims about
its environmental impact in the Niger delta
Niger delta oil spill: boatmen carry people through polluted water in
Nigeria's Ogoniland region. Photograph: Akintunde Akinleye/Reuters
http://csrstrategygroup.com/the-lies-shell-is-telling-about-oil-spills-in-the-niger-delta/
and
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/nov/07/shell-oil-niger-delta-pollution-amnesty
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
Peter Burgess ... Founder/CEO at TrueValueMetrics ... formerly international business and development consultant and corporate CFO
Thank you for pulling this information together. However, there are deeper things here than the simple issue of a petroleum company polluting like crazy and being allowed to get away with it ... for essentially half a century.
My connection with Nigeria and this area goes back to the 1970s when I was helping to set up a shrimp fishing operation based in the Niger Delta. The scale of the petroleum operations was quite modest in the early 1970s but it boomed after the first oil shock in 1973.
Almost everything that is wrong with the profit maximizing international capitalist corporate business model has been on display in Nigeria for the past 40 years. The livelihood of the local fisherfolk has been devastated but the 'big people' locally and internationally do not 'give a damn'.
A huge amount of money wealth is slopping around at the top of the energy industry, and many of the world's leaders are laughing all the way to the bank. Putting an end to this is very difficult because the amounts of money are huge and big people do not like little people to interfere with their wealth accumulation ... and the international banks have made moving wealth around the world very easy.
When the money flows are really big, the normal 'rules of law' do not apply in quite the same way as they do when we are dealing with a $100 problem.
How can this all be changed? Every decent person on the planet wants this problem to be solved, but nothing happens!
Peter Burgess - TrueValueMetrics Multi Dimension Impact Accounting
Peter Burgess
More COMMENTARY
CSRwire, The Corporate Social Responsibility Newswire
Simon Billenness President of CSR Strategy Group, experienced in corporate accountability & shareholder advocacy, and blogger
Read my new blog 'The Lies Shell is Telling About Oil Spills in the Niger Delta'
The Lies Shell is Telling About Oil Spills in the Niger Delta csrstrategygroup.com
In the powerful new report “Bad Information,” Amnesty International and the Center for Environment, Human Rights and Development (CEHRD) reveal that Shell has manipulated investigations into its oil spills in Nigeria.
Posted on November 8, 2013
This is the text of my new blog on the Amnesty International USA website: “The Lies Shell is Telling About Oil Spills in the Niger Delta.” To see the accompanying illustrations and photos, click though to my Amnesty blog piece.
In the powerful new report “Bad Information,” Amnesty International and the Center for Environment, Human Rights and Development (CEHRD) reveal that Shell has manipulated investigations into its oil spills in Nigeria.
“Shell is being disingenuous about the devastation caused by its Niger Delta operations. This new evidence shows that Shell’s claims about the oil spills cannot be trusted,” said Audrey Gaughran, Director of Global Issues at Amnesty International.
New analysis from an independent expert found that so-called official investigation reports into the cause of oil spills in the Niger Delta can be “very subjective, misleading and downright false.”
The report highlights systemic weaknesses in the way the cause of a spill and the volume are determined – with some significant errors in the volumes that are recorded as spilt. The oil companies do not have to back up the claims with full and independent evidence. The evidence that does exist remains firmly under their control.
The consequences for the affected communities are devastating and can result in them receiving little or no compensation.
“Shell looks to blame others based on investigation reports that, in some cases, amount to nothing more than dodgy dossiers,” said Styvn Obodoekwe, Director of Programs at CEHRD.
At Amnesty International and CEHRD’s request, the independent U.S. oil pipeline specialist Accufacts assessed a number of oil spill investigation reports, as well as responses from oil companies operating in the Niger Delta and Nigeria’s national oil spill agency.
The expert found cases where the stated cause of an oil spill appears to be wrongly attributed to sabotage. In many other cases, sabotage was listed as the cause when there was little or no data recorded to back up the claim.
Overall, Accufacts concluded that many official investigation reports were “technically incomplete,” and others “appear to be serving another agenda, more driven by politics…than pipeline forensic science.”
Nigeria’s under-resourced regulatory agencies have little oversight or control of the process and are dependent on the oil companies to carry out investigations. In one incident, a regulator sent a student on work experience as their sole representative to an oil spill investigation.
“This is a system that is wide open to abuse – and abuse happens. There is no one to challenge the oil companies and almost no way to independently verify what they say. In effect it’s ‘trust us – we’re big oil,” said Gaughran.
Shell has made some improvements to its investigation reports since 2011, including the addition of images of oil spills on its corporate website. But serious flaws remain, including weaknesses in the underlying evidence used to attribute spills to sabotage.
Information listed in oil spill investigation reports determines whether oil companies are liable to pay compensation to affected communities. Despite serious flaws, the reports are cited as evidence in litigation.
Amnesty International and CEHRD found evidence of Shell having changed the officially recorded cause of a spill after an investigation had taken place.
In one incident, secretly filmed video of an investigation shows how officials from Shell and the regulator tried to subvert the evidence by persuading community members on the investigation team not to attribute the cause to equipment failure.
Video footage of a leak from an oil spill in Bodo from 2008 reviewed by Accufacts shows that Shell seriously under-recorded the volume spilt. Shell’s official investigation report claims only 1,640 barrels of oil were spilt in total, but other evidence points to the amount being at least 60 times higher.
Hundreds of oil spills occur in Nigeria every year, causing significant harm to the environment, destroying livelihoods and placing human health at serious risk. These spills are caused by corrosion, poor maintenance of oil infrastructure and equipment failure as well as sabotage and theft of oil.
Shell has repeatedly claimed to its investors, customers and the media that sabotage and theft were behind the vast majority of spills. But the facts do not support this assertion.
“Instead of being in the dock when there is an oil spill in Nigeria, Shell gets to act as judge and jury. It is the communities that suffer a life sentence, with their land and livelihoods destroyed by the pollution,” said Gaughran.
“Shell and other oil companies refer to sabotage and theft in the Niger Delta as if it absolved them of responsibility. The Niger Delta is the only place in the world where companies brazenly admit to massive oil pollution from their operations and claim it is not their fault.”
“Almost anywhere else, they would be challenged on why they have done so little to prevent it.”
Shell’s claims about how much oil is spilt due to sabotage and theft are increasingly being challenged. In June 2013, a Dutch agency found that the oil giant’s statements were based on disputed evidence and flawed investigations.
“As Shell’s claims on sabotage and theft come under scrutiny the company’s story is changing; we now hear more about illegal refining being the cause of oil pollution. Yet again, Shell is spinning a real problem into a PR shield for the company,” said Obodoekwe.
“Illegal refining causes pollution, but Shell cannot claim it is occurring in specific cases unless and until it produces reliable proof.”
The report argues that companies should be legally liable for failure to take effective action to protect their systems, including from sabotage.
Amnesty International and CEHRD are calling on the oil companies to publish all investigation reports, associated photos and videos. They must provide verifiable evidence of the cause and damage to the impacted area.
The Nigerian government must also substantially strengthen the capacity of the regulators including by providing an increased budget for its operations.
Shell made false claims about Niger delta oil pollution, says Amnesty ... Report cites discrepancies between evidence of environmental damage from Nigeria spills and claims made by oil company
John Vidal ... theguardian.com,
Wednesday 6 November 2013 19.01 EST
Amnesty International accuses Shell of false claims about its environmental impact in the Niger delta, saying that the oil company cannot be trusted and that there are 'serious discrepancies' between the evidence of pollution and what Shell claims.
'[Its] claims about its environmental impact in the Niger delta are frequently untrue. Shell has claimed that the oil spill investigations are sound when they are not, that sites are cleaned up when they are not, and that the company is transparent when, in reality, it maintains very tight control over every piece of information – deciding what to disclose and what to withhold,' a report into oil spills in the Nigerian region says. 'Shell is being disingenuous about the devastation caused by its Niger delta operations. Shell's claims about the oil spills cannot be trusted.'
According to official figures, there are several hundred oil spills a year in the delta, many of which involve Shell pipelines. 'Instead of being in the dock when there is an oil spill in Nigeria, Shell gets to act as judge and jury,' says the Nobel prize-winning human rights organisation. 'It is the communities that suffer a life sentence, with their land and livelihoods destroyed by the pollution. The Niger delta is the only place in the world where companies brazenly admit to massive oil pollution from their operations and claim it is not their fault. Almost anywhere else they would be challenged on why they have done so little to prevent it.'
The report argues that the investigations oil companies must conduct into spills are seriously flawed. 'So-called official investigation reports into the cause of oil spills in the Niger delta can be very subjective, misleading and downright false. This is a system that is wide open to abuse – and abuse happens. There is no one to challenge the oil companies and almost no way to independently verify what they say. In effect it's 'trust us – we're big oil',' said Audrey Gaughran, director of global thematic issues at Amnesty and lead researcher on the report.
The report, which was shown to Shell before publication and includes the company's denials, refutations and explanations, is likely to be explosive in Nigeria, where the company is a major employer and one of the biggest generators of foreign currency.
A Shell spokesman in London said: 'The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) firmly rejects unsubstantiated assertions that they have exaggerated the impact of crude oil theft and sabotage to distract attention from operational performance. We seek to bring greater transparency and independent oversight to the issue of oil spills, and will continue to find ways to enhance this. These efforts include publishing spill data online since January 2011 and working with Bureau Veritas, an independent third party, to find ways to improve the immediate response to a spill. It must be emphasised that the joint investigation process is a federal process that SPDC cannot unilaterally change, involving as it does representatives of regulatory bodies, the ministry of environment, the Nigerian police force, state government and impacted communities.'
The company called on the Nigerian government and civil society to end the theft of oil, which regularly forces its pipelines to close. 'Solutions to the terrible tragedy of oil pollution in the Niger delta need to be found. Crude theft continues to affect people, the environment and the economy. Co-ordinated action from the industry, government, security forces, civil society and others is needed to end this criminality. SPDC regrets that some NGOs continue to take a campaigning approach rather than focusing on on-the-ground solutions that bring societal benefits.'
The report voices particular concern about Shell's activities in Ogoniland, the 400-sq-mile region in the delta whose people led a revolt against Shell's pollution in the 1990s and forced the company to withdraw. 'When Shell left Ogoniland it did not properly decommission its facilities, leaving them open to interference, and communities exposed to the associated risks,' it says. 'This is completely contrary to international oil industry standards as well as international standards on business and human rights, both of which require that Shell exercise adequate due diligence in relation to prevention of sabotage, theft and the associated human rights and environmental risks.
'Shell has claimed that the reason that it never properly decommissioned its Ogoniland facilities and made them safe over the last 18 years was lack of access. This is not the case. Shell has had access to Ogoniland over the last 18 years, including to carry out the highly inadequate clean-ups that Unep [the UN Environment Programme] documented. Shell's access to Ogoniland is undoubtedly restricted at times, but Shell cannot defend its failure to properly decommission facilities in Ogoniland over 18 years by reference to problems of access.'
Amnesty International and the Centre for Environment, Human Rights and Development in Nigeria claim to have found evidence of Shell having changed the officially recorded cause of a spill after an investigation had taken place at Bodo. In one incident, secretly filmed video of an investigation shows how officials from Shell and the regulator tried to subvert the evidence by persuading community members on the investigation team not to attribute the cause to equipment failure.
Footage of an oil leak in Bodo from 2008 reviewed by a US spill-monitoring company suggests that Shell seriously under-recorded the volume shed. 'Shell's official investigation report claims only 1,640 barrels of oil were spilt in total, but other evidence points to the amount being at least 60 times higher. Shell has repeatedly claimed to its investors, customers and the media that sabotage and theft were behind the vast majority of spills – but the facts do not support this assertion,' the report says.