The Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria, ERA/FoEN, has urged the federal government to shun the warning of Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, that Nigeria’s declining oil output would be aggravated if the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, is passed into law. According to ERA, such warning is an attempt to frustrate the move by Nigeria to bring sanity into the sector and recover some level of sovereignty in relation to the resource. The oil majors have reportedly kicked against certain sections of the PIB preferring to perpetrate the existing unfair relationships, remain unaccountable, operate in impunity and evade taxes and public scrutiny.
Nnimmo Bassey, executive director, ERA/FoEN, says: “ERA’s position is coming in the wake of widely publicised reports in the media indicating that Shell is suspending new investments in Nigeria, especially in the deep offshore where the PIB stipulates conditions that will benefit the nation”.
Bassey disclosed that ExxonMobil along with Chevron and Shell have voiced their opposition to key sections of the PIB which allow the federal government to renegotiate old contracts, impose higher costs on oil companies and reclaim oil fields that oil companies are yet to explore. The companies, according to him, will also be forced to give back unused land from existing oil licences to provide new investors an opportunity to operate in Nigeria.
Ann Pickard, Shell regional executive vice president, recently warned that proposals to impose tougher terms on oil companies as part of the sweeping reforms in Nigeria’s oil industry designed to reverse years of stagnation would be