By Bart H. Meijer and Anthony Deutsch
AMSTERDAM, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Employees at Royal Dutch
Shell's Nigerian joint venture orchestrated damage to oil
pipelines to profit from the money spent on clean-up operations,
Dutch investigative TV programme Zembla reported on Thursday.
Employees of Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria
(SPDC) recruited local youth to sabotage the pipelines and then
hired them back as workers to clean up the mess, the report
said, citing research by Dutch environmental group
Milieudefensie.
Shell's SPDC said it investigates all credible reports of
misconduct and takes action where needed.
"As of now, we are not aware of any staff or contractor
having been involved in acts causing oil spills in the Niger
Delta", it said in a reaction sent to Reuters via Shell's Dutch
head office.
The Dutch Foreign Ministry did not respond to a request for
comment.
Shell officials and the Dutch ambassador to Nigeria were
made aware of the matter by local leaders in 2018, but did not
act on those warnings, Zembla said.
Milieudefensie said in a statement on Thursday its research
centred on on the village of Ikarama, where it said there had
been 30 spills in the last 13 years. "The majority of the leaks
in Ikarama were the result of instructions given by Shell
Nigeria employees," it said.
The profit made on the cleaning operations was split between
SPDC employees and the youths, Zembla said, citing statements
provided to police and Nigeria's Ikarama Youth Council by
witnesses and people who said they or their family members had
taken part.
The programme did not provide any figures on how much profit
was allegedly made.
Pipeline sabotage is a major source of pollution in the
Niger Delta.
In 2019, Royal Dutch Shell's onshore Nigeria subsidiary said
it had seen a 41% rise in the number of crude oil spills caused
by theft or pipeline sabotage.
Of a total 164 SPDC spills of more than 100 kilograms in the
delta, 157 were from theft and sabotage, Shell said.
SPDC is a joint venture of the Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation (NNPC), which holds a 55% stake, Shell, its
operator, with 30%, France's Total with 10% and
Italy's Eni with 5%.
It produces around 1 million barrels of oil per day and
operates more than 6,000 kilometres of pipelines in the delta.
(Reporting by Bart Meijer and Anthony Deutsch; editing by
Barbara Lewis)
