Adewale Sanyaolu
The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd (SPDC) has denied allegations of environmental mismanagement in the Niger Delta leveled against it at the weekend by Amnesty International.
SPDC while reiterating its commitment to swift response to oil spill incidents as much as access and security conditions permit teams to mobilise and deploy to spill sites to investigate, clean up and remediate such areas. This, it said is in addition to deploying technology and best practices to make it more difficult for unauthorised persons to break pipelines and steal crude oil from its facilities.
Amnesty International had last Friday accused two international oil companies operating in Nigeria, Shell and Eni, of negligence when addressing spills in the country.
The London-based human rights group described the oil majors’ action as “serious negligence,” saying they were “taking weeks to respond to reports of spills and publishing misleading information about the cause and severity of spills, which may result in communities not receiving compensation.” It said the evidence of the negligence was exposed by a research project, adding that the oil giants’ “irresponsible approach to oil spills in the Niger Delta is exacerbating an environmental crisis.”
“Shell and Eni claim they are doing everything they can to prevent oil spills but Decoders’ research suggests otherwise. They found that the companies often ignore reports of oil spills for months on end; on one occasion, Eni took more than a year to respond,” the Business and Human Rights Researcher, Amnesty International, Mark Dummett, stated.
Amnesty International asked the Nigerian government to re-open investigations. But, SPDC in its reaction to Amnesty International allegations said “SPDC, in collaboration with government regulators, responds swiftly to spill incidents as quickly as it can and cleans up spills from its facilities regardless of the cause,” said General Manager, External Relations, Igo Weli.
“We regularly test our emergency spill response procedures and capability to ensure staff and contractors can respond rapidly to an incident. However, response to spills, clean-up and remediation depend on access to the spill site and ultimately on the security of personnel and equipment while work is ongoing.”