Ben van Beurden, the Chief Executive Officer of Royal Dutch Shell has said that the company needs to take a hard look at activities on its onshore operations to limit the rising cases of theft and sabotage which affect the environment.
The Shell boss disclosed this to newsmen on Thursday in response to court orders to Shell over activities related to oil spillage, Reuters reports.
“Our onshore oil position, despite all the efforts we put in against theft and sabotage, is under challenge,” van Beurden said.
“But developments, like we are still seeing at the moment, mean that we have to take another hard look at our position in onshore oil in Nigeria,” he added.
Over the past decade, Shell’s Nigerian onshore joint venture SPDC has sold about 50% of its oil assets.
What you should know
- A Dutch court ordered Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) to pay compensation over oil spills in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria.
- The Court of Appeal in The Hague on Friday ruled that the Nigerian arm of the British-Dutch oil company, which has its headquarters in the Netherlands, must pay compensation over a long-running civil case involving 4 Nigerian farmers seeking compensation, and a cleanup, from the company over pollution caused by leaking oil pipelines.
- Officials of Royal Dutch Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary had been accused of allegedly masterminding the damage to oil pipelines so as to benefit from the money spent on repairs and clean-up operations.
- Also, Nigeria’s Heirs Holdings expanded its Oil and Gas portfolio, as it acquired 45% of OML 17 from Shell Nigeria, through a financing component of US$1.1 billion, provided by a consortium of global and regional banks and investors.