Royal Dutch Shell: Nigeria Colin McMurry and Joshua Sinclair

Royal Dutch Shell: Background Information ● Originally from The Netherlands ● HQ in UK ● One of the 6 oil and gas “supermajors” ● World’s largest company ● Has been in Nigeria since 1937

Disparity in the country ● 70% of the 160 million people live below the poverty line(1.25 dollars a day) ● Ogoni tribe in the region have not benefited from the oil found in the region ● Livelihood is being threatened -land is being destroyed by acid rain -water is polluted due to constant oil leaks and spills -air is polluted through excess release of carbon dioxide via “flaring”

Disparity in the country ● Pipelines running over agricultural land and villages ● Shell Nigeria gets 80% of the oil from the delta. They ignore the well being of the local tribes because most of the profit in the country is found there ● 80% of the government income comes from oil.

Effective Strategy? Yes ● Although few, some locals are employed ● Provides contracts to local business (for example: Kaztec Engineering was given $84.5 million to build an oil pipeline) ● Boosted Nigeria’s economy (GDP) ● Energy provided in Nigerian homes

Effective Strategy? No ● Locals are often unable to be hired (due to lack of education) ● Environment is destroyed through “Flaring” ● “Flaring” is when excess/ unwanted oil is burned-off ● “Flaring” releases a huge amount of Carbon Dioxide ● Carbon Dioxide in the air has led to acid rain ● Acid rain contaminates the land, destroys local agriculture and soil for future farming

Effective Strategy? No ● Ken Saro-Wiwa along with 8 others were executed for expressing their concern for the land that shell was destroying ● Saro-Wiwa was an environmental-activist who led a nonviolent campaign against environmental-degradation ● Shell forced the “Ogoni” tribe to move, and live in poverty so Shell could build more refineries to continue making millions

Effective Strategy? No ● Oil Spills in the Niger Delta are frequent ● Sometimes due to carelessness of Shell/ around 30% of the time ● Often linked to sabotage or oil-theft from locals/ around 70% of the time ● The oil not only contaminates the water and destroys fishermens’ jobs but also will contaminate the land along the coast and will affect subsistence farmers

Video Clip Niger Delta- envir pollution

Bibliography -"Nigeria Case Study." General Paper JasbirKoh. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Dec "Factsheet: The Case Against Shell." Center for Constitution RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Dec "Oil: The Curse of the Ogoni." Oil: The Curse of the Ogoni. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Dec "Factsheet: The Case Against Shell." Center for Constitution RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Dec "Oil Spill Data." - Nigeria. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Dec