Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell has agreed to a
$84m (£55m) settlement with residents of the Bodo community in the Niger Delta
for two oil spills. Lawyers for 15,600 Nigerian fishermen say their
clients will receive $3,300 each for losses caused by the spills. The remaining $30m will be left for the community,
which law firm Leigh Day says was "devastated by the two massive oil
spills in 2008 and 2009".
They say they affected thousands of hectares of
mangrove in south Nigeria. The settlement was announced by the Anglo-Dutch oil
giant's Nigerian subsidiary SPDC. "From the outset, we've accepted
responsibility for the two deeply regrettable operational spills in Bodo,"
its managing director Mutiu Sunmonu said. Shell says that both spills were
caused by operational failure of the pipelines.
However, the company maintains that the extent of
environmental pollution in the area is caused by "the scourge of oil theft
and illegal refining".
It also suggested that earlier settlement efforts
had been hampered "by divisions within the community".
The law firm representing the Nigerian fishermen
and their community, Leigh Day, described it as one of the largest payouts to
an entire community after devastating environmental damage.
"It is the first time that compensation has been paid following an
oil spill in Nigeria to the thousands of individuals who have suffered
loss," the firm said in a press release confirming the development.
The deal, which ends a three-year legal battle, is
the first of its kind in Nigeria, it added.
Leigh Day also said that Shell had pledged to clean
up the Bodo Creek over the next few months.
Lawyer Martyn Day, who represents the claimants,
said it was "deeply disappointing that Shell took six years to take this
case seriously and to recognise the true extent of the damage these spills
caused to the environment and to those who rely on it for their
livelihood".
An Amnesty International report into the effects of
the oil spills in Bodo, a town in the Ogoniland region, said that the spills
had caused headaches and eyesight problems.
The price of fish, a local staple food, rose as
much as tenfold and many fishermen had to find alternative ways to make a
living, the report added. A separate UN study said local drinking water sources
were also contaminated.
The two spills came from the same pipe on the Trans
Niger Pipeline, operated by Shell, which takes oil from its fields to the
export terminal at Bonny on the coast. It carries about 180,000 barrels of oil
per day.
Source: BBC
No comments:
Post a Comment