Essay on Shell Company Oil Spills in Nigeria

Shell is a global group of energy and petrochemical companies. Their operations are divided into four businesses, which are upstream, downstream, integrated gas, and projects and technology. Upstream focuses on exploration of new liquids and natural gas reserves. Integrated gas focuses on liquefying natural gas (LNG) and converting gas to liquids. The downstream division turns crude oil into a range of refined products, which are then moved and marketed around the world for use. Projects and technology is responsible for delivering new development projects (“What We Do”).

The only argument one can come up with is that an oil spill is a sad side effect of a very necessary oil industry. The oil industry plays a role in almost all machine based industries. It has arguably become the most sought after source of energy. Without the oil industry, much of the world would come to a halt. The energy based market would plummet. So, if minor oil spills and occasional large spills are required to keep the market intact and the energy output in the world consistent, technological enthusiasts will allow it. Even though we can always bring up the importance of the oil industry, on the contrary, an understanding and reasonable person would argue that since our world is being harmed by the oil, its acquiring process, and how the supply is slowly depleting, these oil conglomerates should stop trying to pretend that everything is and stop milking the oil industry till it fails and as the world have nothing to fall back

The demand for oil is ever expanding as the world’s energy needs continue to increase resulting in companies striving to meet the demand for oil production. The huge costs of oil importation are what ultimately push the need to tap into our backyard rather than import oil from countries around the world for significantly higher prices. While oil corporations can be credited with providing people minimized costs of products due to their offshore oil drilling efforts. The fact of the matter is that having a cleaner environment is seen as being more vital than having a cheaper product at the cost of an unhealthier environment. Though, many experts agree that the potential risks of offshore oil drilling are often exaggerated, recent disasters such as the British Petroleum (BP) oil spill have proven

Oil spills are notorious environmental hazards. Spills are costly to clean up, and they impact hundreds of

Understanding how oil spills often happen makes it easy to see that not only are they messy and dangerous, they are also inevitable. They can be lessened though. For years we have been told that drilling for oil was safe and that the chances of a catastrophic oil spill happening was too small to worry about. This was

Jonah Gbemre instituted a lawsuit on behalf of himself and the Iwhereken Community in Delta State, in the Niger Delta area of Nigeria against Shell Petroleum Development Company Nigeria Ltd, NNPC and the Attorney General of the Federation . Alleging violations of both constitutional provisions and those of the African Charter under the fundamental rights enforcement procedure in the Nigerian constitution, the Plaintiffs claimed that sections 33(1) and 34(1) of the constitution, their right to life and the dignity of the human person and articles 4, 16 and 24 of the African Charter had been violated by the oil exploration and production activities of Shell, which led to incessant gas flaring . In addition, the plaintiffs alleged that the continuous gas flaring by the MNCs had led to the pollution of the environment, exposing the community to the risk of premature death, respiratory illnesses, asthma and cancer . Their crop production was alleged to have been ruined by pollution thereby adversely affecting their food security . Furthermore, many of the natives were said to have died with many more were suffering from various illnesses causing the Plaintiffs to complain that the community had been left in a state of gross underdevelopment . One of the many grounds on which the defendants hinged their case, according to Amao, was that the quoted articles of the African Charter , under the Nigerian fundamental rights enforcement procedure, do not create enforceable rights . Due

In 2010 on April 20th the Gulf of Mexico had seen the worst environmental disaster the world had ever seen. It started as an explosion on a BP oil rig that took the lives of 11 people and injuring 17 while leaking "...at least 3 million barrels of oil..." (Bryant & Hunter, 2010, para. 2 This was not the first accident that has happened to BP but, certainly the most costly. In 2005 there was an explosion at a refinery in Texas that killed 15 and injured over 180 people (Bryant & Hunter, 2010). They ended up paying over "...2 billion in damages and lawsuits" (Bryant & Hunter, 2010, para. 5). With the 2005 incident, BP had cut costs in their operating budget and also lowered the safety standards of the company (Bryant & Hunter, 2010). There

The British Petroleum oil spill damaged the shorelines of four Gulf states. Worse yet, it took three months to build the relief well to stop the flow. It immediately threatened more than sixty five thousand acres in four National Wildlife Refuges, home to endangered species. Approximately forty percent of the coastal wetlands of the lower forty eight states is located in Louisiana, and it's worth ninety six billion. British Petroleum spent six billion to hire four thousand people to clean up the spill that year. This contributed more than the seven hundred million lost in fishing and tourism revenues and the three thousand jobs lost to the six-month deep-water drilling moratorium

In her case study, the author Emily Ahonen (n.d) makes us revisit the gulf oil spill that took place on April 20, 2010. She begins the paper by giving us a brief background about the Gulf oil spill and how it went on to become the largest spill in the history of U.S. The drilling rig, Deepwater Horizon, is believed to have exploded due to “a series of safety, regulatory, and oversight problems” (Ahonen, n.d.). As stated by the National Oil and Hazardous Substance Pollution Contingency Plan (NCP) of 1994, the Gulf spill was declared a spill of national significance after nine days of disaster. The NCP held the responsible party, British Petroleum, accountable for the costs related to response efforts.

Both the Exxon and British Petroleum spills were tragic to the wildlife, environment, economy and local citizens. In each scenario, the disaster could have been avoided, thus the organizations had to change their views on how to operate in the future years. The following essay will describe Exxon’s organizational performance and change goals, as well as, a comparison between the Exxon and British Petroleum spills.

Shell is the largest oil, gas, and energy company compared to Total, Exxon, Chevron, and BP. Shell is very competitive and innovative because they out-think their competition & always change their strategy to be the best. Shell changed their name from Shell Oil & Gas to Shell Energy to set them aside from the competition which was a brilliant move. Peter Voser, the Chief Executive Officer of Royal Dutch Shell stated, “We are delivering a strategy that others can’t easily repeat, with unique skills in technology and integration and a worldwide set of opportunities for new investment”. Shell recently invested and merged with BG Group and changed the entire portfolio which could possibly make them billions in the

In Canada, if there was an oil spill, the company responsible for the spill has to pay to clean it up, but usually they do not pay the total costs and will use a legal team to try to get them out of paying when the total cleanup costs for oil spills are anywhere from $30 million - $40 billion depending on the severity which leaves the government (and by extension- taxpayers) are the ones most likely to pay most of the cleanup

The effect of oil spill is usually calculated in terms of damage on the environment, aftermath on marine species, and effect on the tourism and fishery industries. The impact on human health is less known relatively. The financial costs associated with oil spills are also a factor. Arguably, it is a less serious consequence of an Oil Spill, however the financial costs have the potential to bankrupt an organization. BP suffered major financial loss as a result of the Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. They have paid up to $1.5 billion in an effort to settle various claims and compensation. (BP, n.d)

     Nigeria has been a country in political turmoil for a long time. The country was created in 1914 under British colonial rule and at that time it was considered a protectorate. It was not until 1960 that Nigeria received independence from the United Kingdom. One of Nigeria's problems politically is that it has over three hundred different ethnic groups. The three largest of these are the Hausa-Fulani, Igbo, and Yoruba. At the time of the independence of Nigeria it was split up into three states with each state being under the control of one of the major ethnic groups. The natural resources of the other 297 ethnic groups were exploited for the major three groups,

The company planned to consolidate its leadership position in the West African Aviation fuel sector, with the expansion of Cameroun, Port Harcourt, Sokoto, Calabar, Maiduguri, and Enugu airports. The company has strengthened grip in the aviation fuel sector in Nigeria, Togo and Cote d’Ivoire; winning major contracts for the supply of JET1 to various international airlines operating in West Africa.