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Report: Shell Nigeria falsely reports oil spills

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Amnesty International accuses Nigeria’s biggest petroleum producer, Shell, of manipulating oil spill investigations and documents in cases where the rights group says the company has wrongly reported on the cause and volume of pollution devastating the Niger Delta and made false claims about cleanup measures. The future of farmers and fishermen whose livelihoods are destroyed by such spills depends on reports that can be “very subjective, misleading and downright false,” according to an independent U.S. industry expert hired by Amnesty International to review documents newly obtained under Nigeria’s freedom of information law. The Amnesty report offers detailed analysis to back longstanding charges that oil companies blame sabotage for spills sometimes caused by corrosion and other faults in aging pipelines. Sabotage or oil theft means a community is not eligible for compensation. Shell Nigeria said it “firmly rejects (the) unsubstantiated assertions” and seeks “greater transparency and […]

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Shell may give up Nigerian oil pipeline because of thefts, sabotage

http://cdn.ph.upi.com/sv/em/upi/UPI-14191383565588/2013/1/7017360716656a0b3e101ef08a71bdea/Shell-may-give-up-Nigerian-oil-pipeline-because-of-thefts-sabotage.jpg ABUJA, Nigeria, Nov. 4 (UPI) — A Shell subsidiary in Nigeria said it’s considering giving up its stake in a 60-mile oil pipeline in the Niger Delta because of thefts and sabotage. Shell Petroleum Development Co. said it may sell its claim to the Nembe Creek Trunkline, the Nigerian newspaper ThisDay reported Monday. The decision, the newspaper reported, comes three years after the company spent $1.1 billion on pipeline overhauls. The trunkline and the region’s Trans-Niger oil pipeline are used for the delivery of an estimated 400,000 barrels of crude oil per day from oil fields in the Niger Delta. In July, the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative estimated Nigeria lost $10.9 billion in oil revenue to theft and sabotage from 2009-11. The government has blamed instability in the Niger Delta for its failure to meet a 2013 production target of 2.53 million barrels of oil per day. […]

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Nigeria: How My Father Turned Me to a Pipeline Vandal At 14 – Suspect

A 15-year-old boy, who was arrested alongside four others by operatives of the Inspector-General of Police Special Task Force on Anti-Pipeline Vandalism, Thursday, disclosed that he was pestered by his father until he joined the illicit act of pipeline vandalism. The suspect, Sani Musa and others were arrested with 200 kegs filled with diesel allegedly siphoned from a pipeline belonging to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, along Shagamu/Ibadan expressway. Also recovered was a truck with number plate KMC 111 XW. Their arrest, according to the Assistant Commissioner of Police in charge of the task force, Friday Ibadin, followed a tip-off that some vandals were leaving the NNPC pipeline in Shagamu. Policemen, led by the Sector Commander, Onaghaise Osayande, a Deputy Superintendent of Police, intercepted them. Reinstating the task force’s resolve to curb the menace of pipeline vandals, Ibadin however noted that it would be achieved with the collaboration […]

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Nigeria: Crude Oil Output Fluctuates Between 2.2 Million and 2.3 Million Barrels Per Day

Barely three years after the Amnesty Programme introduced by the federal government for repentant militants curbed the destructive attacks on oil workers and facilities, creating conducive environment for oil companies to re-open oil fields, Nigeria’s crude oil production figure has become very erratic, following several attacks on the major arteries from February to date. This is coming as the Senate and the House of Representatives could not agree on when the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) will be passed into law. Whereas the Senate said yesterday that the passage of the reform bill earlier scheduled for this year, would not happen before 2015, the House promised it would be passed before the end of 2015. The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mr. Andrew Yakubu, who made the revelation on the country’s erratic crude oil production yesterday, said the daily crude oil production figure ranges between […]

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Shell Looks to Sell Nigerian Pipeline

Royal Dutch Shell RDSB.LN +0.55% Royal Dutch Shell PLC B U.K.: London GBp 2277.00 +12.50 +0.55% Oct. 30, 2013 4:35 pm Volume : 4.93M U.K.: London GBp 2142.50 -134.50 -5.91% Nov. 15, 2012 4:37 pm Volume : P/E Ratio 9.45 Market Cap GBp140.15 Billion Dividend Yield 5.04% Rev. per Employee GBp3,340,510 10/30/13 Shell Seeks to Exit Violent Pa… 10/22/13 Chinese Hunt for Oil in Brazil… 10/20/13 Shell’s Pennsylvania Plans Rem… More quote details and news » RDSB.LN in Your Value Your Change Short position PLC is trying to exit an oil-rich but violent part of Nigeria, say people briefed on the company’s plans to sell a leak-prone pipeline and several oil wells there. In recent weeks, the Anglo-Dutch energy giant has had early talks with Nigeria-based companies over selling them four oil-production blocks and a major pipeline in the southern Niger Delta, say two people with knowledge of the […]

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Nigeria: Warning Shots From the Niger Delta

Perhaps it was a “minor fire incident” that happened at a unit of the Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company last Tuesday. The refinery’s authorities promptly promised to investigate the exact cause of the fire, but they are yet to make their findings available, 10 days after. Terrorist group MEND (Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta), on the other hand, claimed it was responsible for the “sabotage” a few hours after the fire. The group’s spokesman “Jomo Gbomo” said it was targeting the nation’s oil and gas industry to protest President Jonathan’s reliance on “an unsustainable and fraudulent Niger Delta amnesty programme” for peace and security in the region. About the same time, a sister of a presidential adviser linked to the amnesty programme, Mr Oronto Douglas, was in the grip of kidnappers. Two Americans also got kidnapped off the coast of Bayelsa State. As these events signify, […]

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Pirates Abduct Two Americans on Oil Ship Off Nigerian Coast

Pirates attacked an American-flagged oil industry vessel off the Nigerian coast early Thursday and abducted the captain and the chief engineer, both United States citizens, the Nigerian Navy and a private security firm reported. The abductions appeared to be the first involving American hostages in that region in at least two years. An official of the private security firm, AKE Group, of Hereford, England, said the attack on the vessel, identified as the C-Retriever, took place near the Nigerian city of Brass, where the oil-rich Niger Delta empties into the Gulf of Guinea, in West Africa. The official, based in AKE Group’s office in Lagos, Nigeria, spoke on the condition of anonymity. “All we know is this attack happened, and these were the people who were kidnapped,” the official said by telephone. He said he did not know the identities of the two hostages. A spokesman for the Nigerian […]

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Nigeria: Warri Refinery Explosion – MEND Died in 2009 – Ex-Militant Leaders

Photo: AkwaIbom.com Port Harcourt — REPENTANT militant leaders in the Niger Delta, under the auspices of Leadership, Peace and Cultural Development Initiative, LPCDI, yesterday, said the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, MEND, died in 2009 and added that any claim or threat from a faceless group claiming to be MEND should, henceforth, be ignored by Nigerians. Denouncing the claim by MEND that it was responsible for Tuesday’s explosion at the Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company, WRPC, Warri, Delta State, the ex-militant leaders, in a statement by LPCDI president, Pastor Reuben Wilson, said: “MEND ceased to exist from the day we accepted the amnesty offer of the Federal Government. Nigerians should henceforth disregard any claim or threat by MEND because the group died in 2009.” According to him, the acclaimed spokesman of MEND, Jomo Gbomo, never existed. “We make bold to say that there is no organisation […]

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Nigeria's Power Generation Declines to 10-Month Low, Says Presidential Task Force

Nigeria’s electricity generation capacity has declined from the peak generation level of about 4,517.6 mega watts (MW) recorded last December, 2012 to about 3,781.80 MW in October, according to the power generation fact sheet of the Presidential Task Force on Power as at October 20. The electricity generation report showed that though the country’s peak demand level forecast was 12,800 MW of electricity, energy generation capacity stood at about 3,559.46 MW hour per hour (MWH/H), while actual electricity sent out into the national grid was 3,487.85 MWH/H. The Chairman, Technical Committee of the National Council on Privatisation, NCP, Atedo Peterside, said at the handing over of the newly privatized successor companies of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN, to their new owners that the nine former PHCN generation companies (including Omotosho and Olorunsogo) only had available capacity of 2,692 MW as at September 10, as against a total […]

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Nigeria’s Power Generation Declines to 10-Month Low, Says Presidential Task Force

Nigeria’s electricity generation capacity has declined from the peak generation level of about 4,517.6 mega watts (MW) recorded last December, 2012 to about 3,781.80 MW in October, according to the power generation fact sheet of the Presidential Task Force on Power as at October 20. The electricity generation report showed that though the country’s peak demand level forecast was 12,800 MW of electricity, energy generation capacity stood at about 3,559.46 MW hour per hour (MWH/H), while actual electricity sent out into the national grid was 3,487.85 MWH/H. The Chairman, Technical Committee of the National Council on Privatisation, NCP, Atedo Peterside, said at the handing over of the newly privatized successor companies of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN, to their new owners that the nine former PHCN generation companies (including Omotosho and Olorunsogo) only had available capacity of 2,692 MW as at September 10, as against a total […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple