Solicitor Martyn Day is negotiating a settlement with Shell on behalf of 69,000 Nigerians affected by oil spills in the Bodo region
According to Day’s firm, hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil leaked in two spills in 2008, contaminating 20 square km of the Niger Delta, including the waterways of the fishing community of the Bodo Community. The firm said experts estimated the amount of oil spilt to be as large as that of the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska in 1989, and the amount of coastline affected as much as was damaged in the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster last year. It has brought the legal claim in the UK.
Day, senior partner of Leigh, Day and Co, said: “I am pleased that having been notified of the claims Shell has been acting speedily to put right the terrible damage that has resulted.
“The spills have caused severe poverty amongst the community. We will be pressing Shell to provide them with adequate compensation immediately.”
However, Shell, which admits liability for the spills, disputes these figures.
A spokesman for the Shell Petroleum Development Company (Nigeria) Ltd (SPDC) said about 40,000 barrels leaked during the two spills and that it had always acknowledged that these were caused by operational failures.
He said media reports that hundreds of millions of dollars would be paid in compensation were “wildly overstating the reality”, and that SPDC, which is majority-owned by the Nigerian state oil company, will pay compensation in accordance with Nigerian law. He said the legal process could take several months to conclude.
