Officials of Royal Dutch Shell were questioned by Dutch lawmakers Wednesday about pollution from its oil drilling operations in Nigeria.
The meeting in The Hague was called by the Economic Affairs Committee of the lower house of Parliament as a result of complaints waged by Amnesty International, Friends of the Earth, and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development alleged that Shell’s Nigerian operations were “nontransparent” and “inconsistent” on the cause of oil leaks that have plagued the Niger Delta in recent years.
The organizations argue the Shell has understated the amount and expanse of spills and shirked on their responsibilities to operate safely and environmentally. They also allege that Shell has forsaken human rights to achieve higher profits.
Shell maintains that 70% of the oil spills were caused by theft and sabotage (“bunkering”). Ian Craig, the company’s executive vice president for sub-Saharan Africa, said that the number of spills in the Niger Delta is also a result of threats against employees and kidnappings and conditions like “population density, the ensuing competition for resources, poverty, political marginalization, and corruption” that have adversely affected their ability operate as responsibly as they have done in other regions.
Craig said Shell is committed to cleaning up spills related to its operations, but not those caused by theft and sabotage.
Nigeria produced nine percent of Shell’s oil in 2009. Environmentalists say the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico last April was nothing when compared to the decades of spills Nigeria has dealt with.
With reporting from the New York Times.
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