Nigeria: The Future of the Niger Delta Within the Context of a Failed Trust

30 April 2012

At the last Nigerian Oil and Gas Conference which held in February this year two major policy strategies were revealed by the Shell Petroleum Development Company, operator of the Joint Venture Partnership and the minister for Petroleum Resources , the alter ego of the silent partner in the Joint Venture: the SPDC revealed that it was migrating from onshore and shallow water operations to deep sea operations, with a huge investment port folio; on its part, the Petroleum Resources Ministry let off that it was unfolding an investment profile that would unleash a production revolution in the exploitation of its assets.

These bits of information, innocuous or welcome as they may seem to industry operatives, constitute for those who live out their lives in the theatres, neighbourhoods, creeks and fields of production, very bad news of horrific proportions! The reason is simple enough and it is that, having neglected to restore the environment they operated and produced in when those environments were still profitable, the IOCs would not now invest in the restoration of those environments when they are no longer profitable.

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