ABUJA, Nigeria — (AP) — The Nigerian government is in talks with local communities to restart oil production in a region that’s previously suffered environmental damage after oil giant Shell’s sale of its onshore business in the country.
Shell’s $2.4 billion sale of its onshore business to a group of local companies was confirmed last week by Nigeria’s special advisor to the president on energy, Olu Verheijen. It marks the end of the of the London-based energy giant’s nearly century-long operations in the onshore Niger Delta region, where it faces long-running complaints of environmental pollution.
Now a potential restart of oil production Ogoniland region in southern Nigeria, where Shell halted its operations in 1993 following violent protests over allegations of widespread environmental damage and human rights abuses, has been earmarked by government officials as a potential way of increasing its foreign exchange earnings.
“The broad consensus in Ogoni is in favor of restarting production,” said Ledum Mitee, a veteran environmental activist and former president of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People.
A number of Western oil companies, including ExxonMobil, Eni, Equinor, and TotalEnergies — and now Shell — are retreating from Nigeria.
They are mostly moving offshore and limiting their exposure in the West African nation’s Delta region where oil spills have fouled rivers and farms and exacerbated tensions in a region that has faced years of militant violence.
Shell’s sale was delayed following protests by communities and activist groups, including Amnesty International and the Dutch non-profit Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO), demanding that Shell clean up first.
The terms of the deal on addressing the environmental damage left by Shell are not publicly available. Isaac Botti of Social Action, a Nigerian group that organized protests against Shell’s sale, said his organization had requested terms of the agreement the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission signed with Shell and the new owners, Renaissance Africa Energy Company. The regulator did not respond to The Associated Press’ request for comment.
Shell previously told AP that the transaction was designed to preserve the company’s role to “conduct any remediation as operator of the joint venture where spills may have occurred in the past from the joint venture’s operations.”
Scientific studies have found high levels of chemical compounds from crude oil, as well as heavy metals, in the delta, where the industry largely drives Nigeria’s economy but can leave communities’ water sources slick with contaminants.
A cleanup exercise in Ogoniland advised by the United Nations Environment Programme and largely funded by Shell is largely mismanaged, according to U.N. documents obtained by AP.
Activists say they want to see more dialog before any oil production in the region resumes. “I think the president got it right in not imposing solutions but insisting on” consultations on local terms and conditions to resume production, said Mitee, the environmental activist.
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