Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), a subsidiary of the international oil giant Shell Plc in Nigeria, will pay €15 million to communities in the Niger Delta region of the nation that have been impacted by many oil pipeline leaks.
Four Ogoni farmers and fishermen, sued Shell in the Netherlands in 2008 to recover costs associated with cleaning up spills in their villages: Goi, Oruma, and Ikot Ada Udo villages. The local communities had been affected by four oil spills that happened between 2004 and 2007.
The plaintiffs received assistance from Milieudefensie, the Friends of the Earth Dutch chapter.
After 13 years of litigation, a Dutch appeals court ruled in 2021 that Shell must compensate for the string of spills and that the parent firm must build new pipeline equipment to stop further catastrophic spills.
The oil companies claimed in a statement issued on Friday, December 23, that they had reached an agreement with the Dutch environmental organization Milieudefensie that has benefited the impacted towns.
The statement read: “The settlement is on a no-admission-of-liability basis, and settles all claims and ends all pending litigation related to the spills.
“Under the settlement, the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd (SPDC), as operator of the SPDC joint venture, will pay an amount of EUR 15 million for the benefit of the communities and the individual claimants.
“An independent expert has confirmed that SPDC, as operator of the SPDC joint venture, has installed a leak detection system on the 20 lines that form the KCTL pipeline in compliance with the judgment of the court of appeal of The Hague, the Netherlands.”
The statement further added that all parties concurred that remediation had been made and certified as compliant with Nigerian law by the appropriate regulatory body.
It said: “The parties agree this also follows from the judgments of the court of appeal.”
According to Donald Pols, director of Milieudefensie, the settlement would finally let the plaintiffs and their communities move on with their lives. But he added that it also has broader implications.
Donald Pols said: “If we look at the court case as a whole, the major gain is that a new standard has been set: companies will no longer be able to get away with pollution and with ignoring human rights.
“Now they can be called to account.”
