The value of claims instituted by oil communities in the Niger Delta for environmental damages against the Shell Petroleum Development Company has risen to N55.79tn.
Statistics obtained on Sunday by our correspondent from the SPDC andother sources indicated that the amount was derived from over 500 spill-related cases filed in some courts by oil communities in Shell�s areas of operations as at the end of 2004.
A source in the SPDC said, �The cases have been running for a couple of years.
�Most of the cases are still pending, they have not been decided.�
The amount, however, does not include the famous $1.5bn Ijaw Aborigine case, which has been pending for a couple of years, and has attracted the intervention of the National Assembly.
A Federal High Court in Port Harcourt awarded the hefty sum against Shell, citing massive pollution of Ijaw lands.
Corroborating the statistics, a non-governmental organisation, Friends of the Earth noted that of the 4,000 oil spills recorded in the Niger Delta over the past four decades, 1,000 of them were filed against SPDC in the last decade.
While the oil company revels in the fact that �not even a fraction of these cases have been decided, its manner of operations has earned it the award for �Irresponsible Environmental Behaviour.�
The award was conferred on Shell by the Friends of the Earth in January last year at a ceremony outside the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
According to the international environment watchdog, �Shell was nominated for the award for its operations in Nigeria, which have created a legacy of destruction and pollution.�
A senior official in Shell told our correspondent on Friday, �Most of the spills were due to sabotage, although a few were also due to equipment failures.�
He alleged, �The people go and cut up the pipelines to siphon crude, then they run back to us that there has been a spill so that they could collect compensations.
�Sometimes, the communities deny us access to the site until the spill spreads so that the claims could be higher. But most of them are frivolous claims and we never paid a dime for them because their genuineness could not be determined.�
But the Anglo-Dutch oil giant, which produces more than 40 per cent of Nigeria�s 2.2m-barrels-per- day crude, did not admit carelessness in its operations based on the nature of the spills.
For instance, in 2003, of the 221 spill cases recorded, Shell claimed 141 were due to sabotage and 80 to �controllable errors arising from equipment failures or human errors.�
In 2004, there were 236 spills, of which 157 were said to be from sabotage and 79 from controllable sources.
In 2005, according to the company, it recorded 224 spills, 157 from sabotage and the balance of 86 from controllable factors.
But the company reiterated commitment to its aspirations of zero spill in all its operations.
Its environment expert, Dr. Akuro Adoki, observed, �Litigation in the oil industry has been in the increase in recent time, most of which resulted from environmental issues.�
Tracing the incident to the Ken Saro-Wiwa saga, Adoki noted that the increase in such oil spill litigations was partly due to the growing environmental awareness in the Niger Delta, particularly those who wanted to �exploit the perceived poor environmental reputation of the industry operators,� which he said accounted for about 70 per cent of such cases.
He stated that in view of the numerous litigations facing the industry, coupled with regulatory requirements, operators had initiated some studies to promote sustainable development in their areas of operations.
According to him, among these are environmental impact assessment for new facilities� development; environmental evaluation report or studies for existing facilities; post-impact assessment for projects or incident impact assessment; and special studies.
He added that the PIA had become a very important weapon against litigants who might want to cash in on the �ignorance� of the operators.