January 7, 2015 – Royal Dutch Shell has agreed to pay Bodo an oil community in the Niger Delta the sum of 55 million Pounds about N14, 0250, 000,000 as compensation for oil spill between 2008 and 2009.
“Oil giant Shell’s long-overdue compensation pay out to a community devastated by oil spills in the Niger Delta is an important victory for the victims of corporate negligence,” says Director of Global Issues at Amnesty International, Audrey Gaughran,.
According to him, the 55 million Pounds is to be split between 20 million Pounds for the community, and the remaining 35 million Pound to be divided between the 15,600 people, mostly fishermen, in the Bodo community.
“Basically Shell is a lawless company,” says Stevyn Obodoekwe, Director of Programmes at Centre for Environment, Human Rights and Development (CEHRD) told loritosan.wordpress.com last year.
“From the outset, we’ve accepted responsibility for the two deeply regrettable operational spills in Bodo,” its managing director Mutiu Sunmonu said.
According to Loritosan.worldpress.com, Shell has always accepted that the two 2008 Bodo oil spills were the fault of failures on the company’s pipeline at Bodo, but publically – and repeatedly – claimed that the volume of oil spilt was approximately 4,000 barrels for both spills combined, even though the spills went on for weeks.
“In 2012 Amnesty International, using an independent assessment of video footage of the first oil spill, calculated that the total amount of oil split exceeded 100,000 barrels for this spill alone”, the blog said.
