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January 8, 2015

Shell to Pay $84 Million in Compensation for 2008 Nigeria Oil Spills 
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The oil giant Royal Dutch Shell has agreed to pay nearly $84 million in
compensation for a pair of oil spills in Nigeria. The claimants say the
2008 spills devastated their small Niger Delta community with the leak
of 500,000 barrels of oil. Shell initially claimed the spill was only a
fraction of that size, but later acknowledged it could have been bigger.
It is the largest ever out-of-court settlement for an oil spill in
Nigeria, but much smaller than cases in other countries. In a statement,
Amnesty International said: "While the pay-out is a long awaited victory
for the thousands of people who lost their livelihoods in Bodo, it
shouldn't have taken six years to get anything close to fair
compensation."

 

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