Shell said it had suspended plans to sell its onshore oil assets in Nigeria, complying with a Supreme Court ruling that said it had to wait for the outcome of an appeal over a 2019 oil spill.<\/p>\n
“Shell welcomes the Nigerian Supreme Court’s decision to hear the appeal of the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd (SPDC) in this case,” the London-based company said in a statement.<\/p>\n
“Until the outcome of SPDC’s appeal, Shell will not progress the divestment of its interest in SPDC.”<\/p>\n
Nigeria’s Supreme Court on June 16 upheld a lower court ruling that stopped Shell from selling its assets in Nigeria until a dispute over a lower court decision to award a Niger Delta community $1.95 billion in compensation over the spill is resolved.<\/p>\n
Shell wants to sell its 30% stake in SPDC, which it also operates, as the joint venture struggles with hundreds of spills that are caused mostly by theft.<\/p>\n
The company has faced a string of court cases in the past over oil spills.<\/p>\n
Shell said that it remains its “strategic intent” to sell its SPDC stake while continuing to invest in offshore oil and gas as well as onshore gas production.<\/p>\n
“However, such investment will require a stable and competitive investment climate,” Shell said.<\/p>\n
In a separate statement, Osagie Okunbor, Managing Director of SPDC and Shell’s country chair said the joint venture “will continue to comply with the Supreme Court’s order to maintain the status quo.”<\/p>\n
Eighty-eight communities in Rivers state were awarded the compensation for an oil spill they blamed on Shell and which damaged their farms and waterways. Shell denies causing the spill.<\/p>\n
The community sought and was granted a court order blocking Shell from disposing its assets. The company was also ordered to put the $1.95 billion into an account nominated by the court until the legal dispute was settled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Shell said it had suspended plans to sell its onshore oil assets in Nigeria, complying with a Supreme Court ruling that said it had to wait for the outcome of an appeal over a 2019 oil spill. “Shell welcomes the Nigerian Supreme Court’s decision to hear the appeal of the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd (SPDC) in this case,” the London-based company said in a statement. “Until the outcome of SPDC’s appeal, Shell will not progress the divestment of its interest in SPDC.” Nigeria’s Supreme Court on June 16 upheld a lower court ruling that stopped Shell from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-502300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oil-gas"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502300\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}