LONDON, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell needs
to take another hard look at its onshore oil operations in
Nigeria due to continued problems with theft and sabotage, Chief
Executive Ben van Beurden said on Thursday.
A Dutch appeals court on Friday held Shell's Nigerian
subsidiary responsible for multiple oil pipeline leaks in the
Niger Delta and ordered it to pay unspecified damages to
farmers, in a victory for environmentalists.
Shell maintains that the spills were caused by sabotage. In
November, it also lost a Nigerian high court case that could
lead to $44 million in damages for spills.
"Our onshore oil position, despite all the efforts we put in
against theft and sabotage, is under challenge," van Beurden
told reporters, saying it was a headache.
Shell's Nigerian onshore joint venture SPDC has sold about
50% of its oil assets over the past decade, he said.
"But developments like we are still seeing at the moment
mean that we have to take another hard look at our position in
onshore oil in Nigeria."
(Reporting by Ron Bousso and Shadia Nasralla; Editing by David
Clarke)