Nigeria: Shell Oil Spill Increases Tensions in Ogoniland

LAGOS -- Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) of Nigeria finally managed to cap the oil gushing from one of its wells in Ogoniland at the weekend, but the well's blow-out and the resulting flood of oil and gas into the
immediate environment has once more intensified tensions between the giant
oil company and the half-million strong Ogoni Kingdom.

Some Shell officials are openly blaming the blow-out on sabotage. On
Saturday, when the team of engineers arrived to try and contain the flow,
they said they had discovered a panel and some bolts which they believed had
been removed from the well head. They also said some parts of the well head
had been sawn. Although no inference was drawn, it was obvious where the
fingers were pointing.

The Ogonis deny any responsibility, and instead say Shell is trying to
divert attention away from the real problem - how to ensure a proper and
speedy clean-up of the spill. They have put a number of demands to Shell,
including the inclusion of Ogoni representatives in the clean-up
exercise.

Indeed, containment of the spill was at first delayed by Ogoni youths,
who put the demand to the assesment team that visited Ogoniland. The team
included two commissioners of the Rivers State government, as well as a
member of the Rivers State House of Assembly. Other members of the team were
Shell's site engineers and experts from Boots and Coots, the American oil
well company. Last December, engineers from Boots and Coots helped stop a
similar flow from a Shell well in Delta State, after it was vandalised by
unknown persons.

This latest spill occurred at a well abandoned by Shell in Ogoniland in
1993 , following mounting criticism over its operations in the area and the
resulting environmental damage.

Relations between Shell and the Ogonis hit rock bottom in 1995, when the
military government of the late Sani Abacha hanged nine Ogoni activists,
including Ken Saro-Wiwa, leader of the Movement for the Survival of the
Ogoni People, Mosop.

Sabotage apart, Shell also blames the latest blow-out on the lack of
access to its own facilities in Ogoniland. It says the Ogonis have denied it
access to the infrastructure - the oil wells, the flow lines which bring
crude oil to the flow stations, and the pipelines - all of which require
routine maintenance. All requests by Shell for access to the facilities have
been denied by the Ogonis, according to an official of the company.

Now that the well has been capped, the next step is to determine the
cause of the spill. Thereafter, the clean-up exercise can commence. It
remains to be seen, however, how this will be managed. Shell's policy has
been that it does not undertake to clean up after spills, if its
investigations show that sabotage was involved, "so you don't encourage
them," says the official.

Overall, the prospects for improved relations between Shell and the
Ogonis do not look good. But this may not trouble the company as much as
might be expected. Despite all the investment and infrastructure lying
unused in Ogoniland, a source at Shell's Nigerian operations says the
company is "in no hurry to get back to Ogoni."

With the oil industry's attention firmly focused on off-shore, deep
water exploration, where there are no local communities to offend and
massive profits to be made, it could be that Shell has bigger fish to
fry.

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