Shell shocked
Petroleum giant Royal Dutch Petroleum Company (Shell) will have to pay the Ijaw, a Nigerian ethnic group, US $1.5 billion for causing oil spills in their homeland since 1956. The Nigerian senate asked the company on August 24, 2004, to pay the compensation. Though the senate can't enforce the order as it is a legislative body, the country's president, Olusegun Obasanjo, can do so, senate spokesperson Henry Ugbolue told the media.
The senate has asked Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited to make the payment over five years. "The leadership of the senate is committed to ensuring that the order is obeyed and I am sure they will do everything to prevail on the executive to enforce the order,' Ugbolue stressed. The company refused to comment on the matter, saying it hadn't received a copy of the order. Shell is the biggest oil company in Nigeria, the world's seventh largest and Africa's largest oil exporter. The country is the fifth biggest source of oil imports for the US.