•Aiteo considers options against multinational oil company over Nembe spill
•Sector not ripe for full-blown deactivation processes, says industry regulator
•Stakeholders want enforcement of rules
Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria and ExxonMobil are presently faced with huge remediation costs over their failure to properly decommission and cap oil and gas assets across the Niger Delta, especially the ones sold to Nigerians in recent divesture programmes.
A situation that creates severe environmental risks and pollution to host communities in the oil-rich Niger Delta. Rextun City Updates gathered from stakeholders that the recent case of Aiteo’s Nembe wellhead blowout, brought to the fore the need to enforce the relevant laws and to ensure that the multinationals that sold the assets to the Nigerian companies pay remediation charges.
While Aiteo is presently engaged in a legal tussle with Shell, seeking the sum of over $2.5 billion compensation over the sale of Oil Mining Licence 29, it was gathered that the Nigerian oil and gas company is also considering fresh legal action against the multinational over the Nembe spill and other wells not properly capped.
On the other hand, Seplat Energy Plc last month announced that together with its partner, that it was in competitive discussions to acquire ExxonMobil’s Nigerian shallow water business. With this, stakeholders have expressed concern about what would happen if the deal is sealed and some of the ExxonMobil’s assets that were not properly capped causes another environment challenge.
