INVESTIGATION: How Shell Is Pushing Climate Disinformation In Nigeria’s Niger Delta (Part I)

This investigation by PATRICK EGWU is the first of a year-long three-part investigative series on climate change disinformation and claims by international multinational oil companies – Shell and Eni – operating in Nigeria’s Niger Delta region.

Royal Dutch Shell, the largest international oil company operating in Nigeria, is pushing climate disinformation and denials to advance its corporate interests. Each year, the company is responsible for hundreds of spills in the country’s Niger Delta, Africa’s largest oil-producing region, through its Nigerian subsidiary, the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC).

When information posted on its website is taken at face value, the company appears to be committed to protecting the environment by carrying out remediation works, reducing fossil fuel emissions and working towards meeting climate change transition goals.

“Shell provides energy responsibly, helping the world move towards a future in which the energy we use causes minimal impact on our planet,” the company claimed on its website about achieving sustainability. “We recognise the importance of climate change, along with our role in helping people to achieve and maintain a good quality of life.”

Eric Doo, a chief in Goi community in Ogoniland who has been campaigning against oil spills, said the company’s activities in the region are in direct contrast with their climate claims.

“Spills are still going on and livelihoods are still affected by Shell’s operations,” said Doo who won a 15-year-long court battle against Shell at the Hague in 2021. During the spill of 2004, over 23,000 litres of oil spilled into the environment. “What is on paper is different from the realities on the ground and we are currently living in that reality.”

Ogoniland has the largest presence of the UK-based oil multinational and is one of the most contaminated oil-producing communities in the region. The land spans nearly 400 square miles (1,000 square kilometres) with more than 800,000 inhabitants per data from the latest population census. One of the main oil pipelines in the region, the Trans-Niger Pipeline (TNP) is located in the area and Shell has about 100 oil wells and associated oil infrastructure in the community.

On Shell’s website and other publicly available documents, the company has repeatedly claimed that the frequent oil spills are caused by what it described as “Third party interference.” This interference includes theft, sabotage and vandalism to Shell’s pipelines and other critical infrastructure. Locals have been blamed for this interference.

Per Shell’s oil spill incident data, about 94 oil spills have occurred in the Niger Delta from January to August of this year alone. Of this number, Shell, through its joint investigation report, claimed 76 of the spills were caused by sabotage, while the remaining 18 were attributed to operational issues.

“The most significant environmental damage from oil and gas operations in the Niger Delta results from crude oil theft and sabotage of facilities leading to oil spills and environmental degradation,” the company said on its website. “The spills are sometimes made worse because communities occasionally deny access to spill sites for containment.”

Shell also claimed about 94 percent of the oil spills of more than 100 kilograms from its facilities last year were caused by illegal activities of third parties – theft and sabotage by locals, according to its spill incident data. In 2022, the company also claimed that about 88 percent of the oil spills of more than 100 kilograms were caused by the illegal activities of third parties.

Most oil spills in the region continue to be caused by “crude oil theft, the sabotage of oil and gas production facilities, and illegal oil refining, including the distribution of illegally refined products,” a Shell spokesperson told Ripples Nigeria.

But this claim represents a contestable figure and points to the same old claims and disinformation environmental activists like Doo and host communities have repeatedly debunked.

The National Oil Spill Detection Agency, an agency under Nigeria’s Ministry of Environment which monitors and responds to oil spills in Nigeria, through its oil spill monitor tracker, reports that Shell is responsible for hundreds of oil spills in the region.

Doo said some of the pipelines which were laid more than 50 years ago, are old and have never been properly maintained to avoid spills. He noted that while there are a few cases of oil theft and sabotage, most of the spills in the region were caused by “Shell’s rusty pipelines and self-sabotage of its own infrastructure.”

Nnimmo Bassey, the director of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), a Nigerian-based environmental and ecological think tank said oil companies like Shell spend a lot more resources manipulating the narratives than they put into their research to do business in a way that is sustainable.

“They are willfully harming the people and the environment,” he said. “They know that their business cannot be sustainable and so they invest more resources in capturing the language and the perception that people have of their work. There’s no way gas flaring and oil exploration can be sustainable or people friendly or environment friendly.”

Oil volume increases amid divestment

Shell has announced its plans to divest its onshore operations from the Niger Delta region. In January this year, the company agreed in a $1.3 billion deal to sell its Nigerian onshore subsidiary to Renaissance – a consortium of five companies comprising ND Western Limited, Aradel Holdings Plc, the Petrolin Group, FIRST Exploration and Petroleum Development Company Limited, and the Waltersmith Group.

Shell said it will continue to be accountable for its share of commitments including to conduct any remediation as operator of the joint venture where spills may have occurred in the past.

A company spokesperson told Ripples Nigeria the transaction has been designed to ensure that the company can continue to “perform its role as operator and to meet its share of commitments within the joint venture, including those relating to health, safety, security and environment.”

While there have been increased pressure and debates from local communities and activists like Doo for the company to discontinue its plans to divest from the region, Shell has upped its oil production levels – a sign that the divestment could be a ruse.

Despite Shell’s onshore divestment claims, the company increased its oil and gas production to 200 thousand barrels per day and 1.4 billion standard cubic feet per day respectively by the end of 2023.

Osagie Okunbor, Country Chair of Shell Companies in Nigeria said it’s “a demonstration of the ongoing significant potential of the business” in the company’s annual briefing notes which provide an overview of the activities of several Nigerian companies owned by Shell or in which Shell has an interest.

Okunbor said SPDC increased its production volume from 267,000 in 2022 to 290,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2023, representing an eight percent increase. Additionally, the Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company Limited (SNEPCo), another subsidiary, recorded around 138,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day last year compared to around 101,000 in 2022. The company said the increase was driven by the improved performance of new wells, gains from Well Reservoir Facility Management (WRFM), and increased facility uptime.

Shell did not respond for comments on why oil volumes have increased despite plans for divestment.

Crude oil accounts for 86 percent of Nigeria’s export earnings and 90 percent of foreign exchange. According to Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics, exports trade in the first quarter of 2024 was dominated by crude oil exports valued at N15,486.63 billion ($9.4 million) representing 80.80 percent of total exports while the value of non-crude oil exports stood at N3,680.73 billion ($2.2 million) accounting for 19.20 percent of total exports; of which non-oil products contributed N1,778.85 billion ($1 million) or 9.28 percent of total exports.

Shell remains one of the biggest taxpayers in the country, but taxes paid to the government last year was down by 24 percent. The company said it paid $1.09 billion last year in corporate taxes and royalties paid to the Nigerian government – down from $1.36 billion in 2022.

The company said contracts worth more than $1.98 billion were awarded to Nigeria-registered companies – a 3 percent increase in value from the previous year. The company also noted that the Nigerian subsidiary, in compliance with statutory requirements, paid $112.5 million in 2023 to the Niger Delta Development Commission, an agency of government responsible for community development programs such as health and education in the region, while the Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company Limited and its partners paid $30 million.

“It can only be positive for the government because the government is in partnership with them,” Bassey of HOMEF said. “The government only thinks of oil in terms of petro-dollars. The more the pump, the more the money and the more the pollution.”

Remediation claims

In 2011, a United Nations report on oil spills by Shell in the region recommended extensive cleanup of 67 contaminated sites. The report found serious threats to human health due to soil and groundwater contamination by oil.

It took the government five years to start taking actions. In June 2016, the clean-up project was commissioned in an elaborate ceremony in 2016 by Yemi Osibanjo, Nigeria’s then vice president. But actual remediation work didn’t start until 2019.

The report recommended the creation of a $1 billion trust fund to be co-funded by Shell, the government and other operators in the region. Shell was mandated to contribute $900 million to the fund while the government and other operators make up the balance of $100 million.

On their website and other public company records, Shell claims it has fully funded its share of the financial commitments to the clean-up process through the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP), the agency created by the Nigerian government to address the recommendations made in the UN report. The agency handles the clean-up projects in the region.

A Shell spokesperson told Ripples Nigeria that by the end of last year, the company had fully funded its share of the financial commitments to the clean-up process and has “acted on all, and completed most of the UNEP recommendations that were specifically addressed to it as the operator of the joint venture.”

Checks by Ripples Nigeria shows that the company per data shared on its website, has only funded $751 million for the remediation work. In addition, remediation work led by HYPREP on spills caused by Shell are still going on in the region despite claims by the company that it has concluded its part of the project.

HYPREP coordinator Nenibarini Zabbey did not respond to interview requests on funds the agency has received so far and how it has been used. A visit to the HYPREP office yielded no results.

The agency has awarded contracts to 39 contractors to carry out the remediation project, per data shared on its website. Of this number, the agency said 39 have completed site field assessment sampling and 27 received approval to commence remediation works. However, only 17 contractors have commenced work on the sites. Funding to contractors for the clean-up projects is provided by HYPREP. But details of the specifics of the amount paid to each contractor were not available on its website.

Investigation by Ripples Nigeria during field trips to Ogoniland shows that some of the contractors have little expertise about remediation work per information and services available on their websites.

Investigation shows that Satel Construction Nigeria Limited, one of the companies contracted by HYPREP to “carry out site characterization/assessment and remediate hydrocarbon impacted areas within the site” in Gokana area of Ogoniland is listed as a construction company and provides services such as bridge and drainage construction, road construction, and transmission plant installation among others. The company’s website was not available during subsequent visits by Ripples Nigeria.

However, at the clean-up site handled by the company, a large biocell area was created by the company. Biocell is a technology that provides an innovative method for treating small quantities of soils contaminated with low to intermediate concentrations of petroleum hydrocarbons. The contaminated soil is loaded into a dumpster or an enclosed biocell yard and stimulates aerobic microbial activity within the soils which helps in degrading the petroleum-based constituents and contaminants adsorbed to soil particles.

Back in April when Ripples Nigeria visited the clean-up site, a staff of the company who did not want to be named said the clean soil can then be returned to the original excavation site after the tests have been completed. The staff said they had been at work for just two weeks and that the project will last for two years. HYPREP claims the contractor has achieved 19.5 percent of the project.

Per information its website, Esinos Resources International Ltd, another company engaged in the remediation work, provides services such as “oil and gas services, sales and supply of industrial equipment, marketing, sales, supply and distribution of general goods, civil, mechanical and electrical engineering.”

There was no ongoing remediation work the day Ripples Nigeria visited the project site. Bags of soil were stacked around a squared formation on the site. HYPREP said the company has achieved a 10.5 percent completion rate.

A 2020 United Nations Environmental Programme report said HYPREP was not well equipped to handle the clean-up project, adding that the agency “is not designed, nor structured, to implement a project as complex and sizable as the Ogoniland clean-up.”

Doo said the standards of the project have been compromised “so you cannot get good results.”

During a visit to Doo’s community on a sweltering Monday afternoon in May, HYPREP staff were setting up their equipment around his father’s former farm and deserted home to start remediation work on contaminated sites.

Goi community was declared inhabitable due to previous spills and hundreds of residents were forced to abandon the community and move to Bodo, a neighbouring town which is deemed safer to live with friends and relatives. At the nearby creek about 100 meters away from Doo’s deserted house, two fishermen scavenge the oil-polluted creek for fish.

Doo no longer lives in the community. He said the activities of multinational oil companies like Shell have been emboldened by the government’s lack of willpower to hold them accountable to the ongoing spills in the region. There are currently no legal binding regulatory penalties or fines for oil spills in Nigeria.

“I will continue to ask hard questions as long as they have refused to do the right thing,” Doo said. “I will continue to fight against them locally, nationally and internationally until they realize that these are the rights of the people.”

This investigative project is funded and supported by Bertha Foundation as part of the 2024 Bertha Challenge Investigative Journalism Fellowship.