SHELL has lashed out at claims one of its most senior executives in Australia traded Nigerian political secrets with the US Government, as alleged in the latest cache of cables released by WikiLeaks.
The dispatches, created by US embassies in Africa, outline observations of militant attacks and political corruption in the oil-rich country made by Ann Pickard when she was an executive vice president for Shell in Africa.
Ms Pickard has since moved to Australia where she is country chair and executive vice president of Shell Upstream.
A Shell spokeswoman declined to comment on the contents of the cables, which were which were published in the UK’s Guardian newspaper overnight, but said: “The Guardian’s assertion that Shell has somehow infiltrated the Government of Nigeria is absolutely untrue, false and misleading.”
Ms Pickard, who is currently overseas, was not available for comment.
Shell is one of the biggest oil operators in Nigeria, the country in Africa that is the world’s eighth largest oil exporter.
A secret memo from Abuja in 2009 claims Ms Pickard told US diplomats how much access Shell employees had to Nigerian politics.
“She said the GON (Government of Nigeria) had forgotten that Shell had seconded people to all the relevant ministries and that Shell consequently had access to everything that was being done in those ministries,” said the cable.
Cables, published on WikiLeaks, claim to reveal the dangers of doing business in a country where 70 per cent of people live below the poverty line, particularly in the oil-rich Niger Delta, which often faces attacks from militants.
In another update of the oil and gas sector to US ambassador Robin R. Sanders a cable said: “(Ms) Pickard said that things were going from bad to worse, especially the security situation.
“…Last year there were about 80 piracy attacks on land and water combined. This year already 15 have been tallied, which includes 3 for Shell and 3 for Exxon.”
In another memo from the US consulate in Lagos in 2008, Consul General Donna M. Blair claims Ms Pickard told US diplomats that two named regional politicians were behind unrest in the Rivers state.
The cable relayed Ms Pickard’s fears after an attack in the Niger Delta in which militants crossed a “significant amount of dry land”, instead of approaching facilities by boat in swamps and creeks.
“(Ms) Pickard was unsure if this was a one-off occurrence or a new military tactic,” the cable said.
“She expressed concern that if militants were willing to move over long stretches of dry land, oil facilities thought to be secure would be vulnerable to attack.”
The cable claims US diplomats thought Ms Pickard had “downplayed” the attacks’ impact on Shell’s oil production, and feared the US Government would reveal their true extent.
“Pickard has repeatedly told us she does not like to talk to USG officials because the USG is ‘leaky’.
“She may be concerned that by telling us the true impact of the attack more bad news about Shell’s Nigerian operations will leak out.
“But in any case her comments about the causes and methods of growing violence in certain areas of the Delta, particularly Rivers State, bear concern.”
The cable claims Ms Pickard wanted US intelligence to confirm or deny rumours that the Nigerian Government had promised natural gas to Shell’s local rivals Gazprom, because she assumed this would require it to take some of their own concessions in the region.
“(Ms) Pickard asked for USG (US Government) information on GAZPROM’s interest in Nigeria.
“She had heard from contacts in the British government that the GON (Government of Nigeria) has promised GAZPROM access to 17 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.”
Ms Pickard also wanted to know whether the US was supplying the militants with surface to air missiles, the cables said.