John Ighodaro
21 August 2005
SHELL Petroleum and Development Company (SPDC) has hinted that it will not negotiate with the five Rivers Communities that shut down its flow stations, saying the company is not disposed to negotiating under duress.
Disclosing this during an interactive session with journalists, Friday, Shell's Corporate External Affairs Manager, Mr. Donald Borham, said: "The Rupokwu incident shouldn't have come to the level it has attained now. We would have reached some understanding by today if they had not gone ahead to shut down the stations. We don't want to negotiate when we are forced to do so.
We've not even started talking, every avenue for reconciliation or co-operation has not been utilized then you've gone ahead to shut down our flow stations."
He said Shell would not go ahead to summon security agencies to intervene in the face-off, saying, "the Federal Government knows what is happening there. The Federal Government would have to devise its own way of bringing about stability in these communities."
Borham also disclosed that 97 per cent of oil spill incidents in 2004 was caused by sabotage, arguing that only three percent of the volume of oil spilled in the same year resulted from controllable incidents.
According to him, "the number of oil spill incidents in 2004 was 236(221 in 2003), comprising 157 sabotage and 79 controllable incidents (i.e.those resulting from equipment failure, corrosion or human error). "Spills from corrosion incident increase from 18 in 2003 to 38 in 2004 due in part to denial of access by communities - for an extended period of 6 to 18 months - which affected our ability to undertake corrosion-mitigating inspections and cathodic protection programmes."
Meanwhile, the five communities have issued a release, saying, "as we continue our protest against Shell, and hold on to the issues that brought us to this face-off, we are today calling on all anti-corruption agencies, particularly (EFCC) and (ICPC), to earnestly investigate and prosecute all Shell staff involved in the award of contact for clear up and remediation of the Rukpokwu oil spill of December 3, 2004".
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