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Royal Dutch Shell has offered to pay up to £30m in compensation for two oil spills in Nigeria in 2008.The oil company's offer comes after a London court rejected a claim of £300m by around 11,000 residents of the Bodo community in the Niger Delta.The residents, represented by law firm Leigh Day, had appealed in 2011 to a London court for the compensation for the spilling of 500,000 barrels of oil. However, the London High Court on Friday ruled that the pipeline operator could not be held responsible for damage caused by oil theft.Shell's offer from September 2013 to settle the case for £30m pounds is still on offer, sources told Reuters.A trial was scheduled for May 2015 in Nigeria but Shell recommended the claimants reach a settlement beforehand."From the outset, we've accepted responsibility for the two deeply regrettable operational spills in Bodo," Mutiu Sunmonu, Managing Director of the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd (SPDC), said in a statement."We hope the community will now direct their UK legal representatives to stop wasting even more time pursuing enormously exaggerated claims and consider sensible and fair compensation offers," Sunmonu said.Profits of oil majors operating in Nigeria have been hurt by oil theft, sabotage of infrastructure and leaks from ageing pipelines.RD