Essay on Shell Nigeria

Situated along the coast of the Gulf of Guinea is a region about the size of South Carolina that offers a land full of sweet, light crude oil, known as the Niger Delta (Delta). The Delta sits within the country of Nigeria in West Africa and is in a constant state of crisis, underpinned by a multitude of key issues. Those issues include severe poverty, soil and water contamination, high infant mortality rates, low life expectancy, depletion of natural resources, corruption, and armed militia groups. These issues have one thing in common: oil.

This paper includes information regarding the BP Oil spill. References are listed at the bottom.

Niger Delta region, placing the Nigerian oil output down to a third of its capacity” (Klare 3).

As Drew Griffin states “The federal government estimated 4.2 million barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf, but BP argued in court that it was much lower. A judge ruled BP was responsible for the release of 3.1 million barrels. (Griffin, 2015) Regardless of the amount look what damage it has done and the many lives that are affected by this disaster. Many say for 87 days in a row due to an uncapped wellhead lead to this disaster. The loss of money, family seafood business, town tourist revenue, were affected by the oil spill. As Allbusiness eidotors states “For Voisin and other fishermen, the spill couldn’t have come at a worse time. “Processing plants are idle and we are in middle of spring larval season,”

All indications are that the Company’s behavior pre oil spill was irresponsible and negligent and was potentially driven primarily by a focus to provide strong returns on their investments while compromising the integrity and internal controls of the operations. Post oil spill, the Company has had to learn from the consequences of a very costly disaster in order to stay in business and thrive. The Organization appears to understand now the need for effective communication, transparency and detailed due-diligence in all their efforts.

I know its been a couple of days since I have posted, I have been a little busy trying to figure out how a prestige company such as Imperial Metals can be held accountable for the Mount Polley spill. I know I have mentioned the Mount Polley spill briefly in the last post but today you will be getting the full story, kind of like an exposé. As I mentioned a couple of days ago the Mount Polley spill was one to be put in the books

For example, Shell Oil, an MNC (Multi National Corporation), extracted 50% of Nigeria’s yearly crude output, and 14% of its own output from the Niger delta region (The Changing Nature of Third World Exploitation, 1995). Though a large number of the local populace was recruited by Shell to serve as the basic labor force, there has been no change in the deplorable conditions the locals were living in. Over a period of 15 years, due to massive and widespread oil spills, heavy land degradation of the alluvial soil has taken place. The locals, who come from an agriculture based society, have in effect, been deprived of their ancestral way of life, their heritage, all due to the greed driven actions of the partly

The BP Oil Spill An Introductory Background - One of the most controversial ecological disasters in recent history focused on multinational British Petroleum and their Gulf of Mexico Operations. The Deepwater Oil Disaster began on April 20, 2010 with an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon Oil platform, killing 11, injuring 17. It was not until July 15th, however, that the leak was stopped by capping the wellhead, after releasing almost 5 million barrels (206 million gallons) of crude oil, or 53,000 barrels per day into the Gulf of Mexico. It was not until September 19th that the relief well process was complete and the U.S. Government, EPA, and Coast Guard agencies declared the well breach effectively stopped (Cavnar, 2010).

Nigeria is an Agricultural and oil rich nation but characterised by Political instability, corruption, poor

     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,

Most children in the Niger delta have little or no education, due to lack of funds from their parents who have lost their lands and have no jobs because of limited opportunities. The Niger delta government and the oil companies have refused to look into the situation; instead they favor their close relations neglecting the masses. Corruption in the Niger delta has led some youths in taking drastic measure in order to put food on their table. For example, Ikechukwu Efe an indigene of the Niger delta said that some of his friends created their own “oil refinery”, which is made up of crude oil in metal barrels with controlled heat from fire woods. This is a dangerous process in refining crude oil but the degree of poverty in the state left his friends with no choice. If only the government of the Niger delta have created jobs with the wealth of the state Ikechukwu’s friend would not have to put their lives in danger. Until corruption is put to an abrupt the people of the Niger delta will continue to live in poverty.

On April 20, the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico led to the largest accidental release of oil into marine waters in history. As a result, a huge loss of money and life was caused and affected serious environmental damage to wild animals and water pollution. BP was accused of their irresponsibility that it took 87 days before the well was closed and sealed. BP’s shares

Deepwater Horizon oil Spill: BP’s drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico had an explosion in April 2010, causing the “largest oil spill catastrophe in the petroleum industry history”. It caused the death of 11 men and injury to several others. “More than 150,000 barrels of crude oil gushed into the sea, every day, for almost 5 months and up to 68,000 square miles of the Gulf 's surface were covered” (1).

Necessity is the mother of invention. Unfortunately, for oil rich countries like Nigeria, there is no

Currently majority of NNPC’s pipelines are poorly maintained and this is causing oil spillage as the pipelines tend to rupture or leak when oil is being transported to the refineries. A ruptured or leaking pipeline is very hazardous to the environment and leads to production loss for NNPC. From the most current data released, NNPC lose 600,000 barrels of crude oil, which is about 28% of the 2.1 million barrels produced daily with total worth of about $160 million annually (NNPC annual report). In a study conducted on productivity of industries in Nigeria which also applies to NNPC, it was identified that most of the causes of low productivity were due to lack of manager’s unwillingness to maintain the system effectively (Nwachukwu, 2006). Poorly maintained operation management activities result in low production quality and quantity, low market share and low growth rate. In the case of NNPC’s pipelines, apart from low productivity, oil is spilled which has disastrous effects on the community.