Five years after a Shell pipeline burst twice, massively polluting fishing grounds in the Niger delta, the company will finally sit down on Monday with affected villagers to negotiate compensation and possibly start to clean up what some experts say was one of the largest spills in one of the world’s poorest regions.
As legal team prepares for talks, gulf between what company and impoverished villagers claim happened remains vast
John Vidal: theguardian.com, Thursday 5 September 2013 17.43 BST
Shell’s burst pipelines had spilled crude oil in Niger Delta’s mangrove swamps in Bodo village, the cleanup is still pending. Photograph: Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP/Getty ImagesFive years after a Shell pipeline burst twice, massively polluting fishing grounds in the Niger delta, the company will finally sit down on Monday with affected villagers to negotiate compensation and possibly start to clean up what some experts say was one of the largest spills in one of the world’s poorest regions.
But as Shell’s top legal team prepared to fly to Nigeria for talks in a Port Harcourt hotel, the gulf between what the $175bn (£112bn) a year company and the impoverished villagers of Bodo claim happened in 2008 remains vast. Shell admits liability for the spills and, using figures from an official inspection group, says that about 4,000 barrels of oil flooded into the mangrove swamps and creeks when its pipeline burst.