â¢Spillage caused by sabotage, oil firm insists
Festus Akanbi
Judgement came in favour of four Nigerian farmers yesterday when an appeal court in the Netherlands ruled that the Nigerian subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell was responsible for oil pipeline leaks in three communities in the Niger Delta and ordered it to pay unspecified damages to the farmers.
The court said the amount of damages would be determined later and did not specify how many of the four farmers would receive compensation.
After 13 years of legal wrangling, the appeal court in The Hague ruled: âShell Nigeria is sentenced to compensate farmers for damages.â
Vanguard News
Three victims of Port Harcourt gas plant fire dead
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By Egufe Yafugborhi – Port Harcourt
Three victims of the fire outbreak at Adros Gas Company in Rumuodomaya, Obio-Akpor Local Government Area, Rivers State have been reported dead.
Staff at the gas plant revealed on anonymity that the three company staff who were being treated at the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital (UPTH) for severe burns sustained in the gas explosion were confirmed dead Saturday.
The company staff disclosed, “Three of them didn’t survive the burns. They died at UPTH”, just as he confirmed that the plant has been sealed by industry regulators.
FG commits $670m on $3.5bn Brass Methanol Plant construction
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…China, AfDB, others to raise 70% total cost
…Targets 35,000 jobs
By Prince Okafor
The Federal Government has committed an equity investment of $670m for the construction of 10,000 tonnes per day methanol production plant by the Brass Fertiliser and Petrochemical Company Ltd (BFPCL).
This came as the two Federal Government’s agencies involved in the project, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), along with DSV Engineering (an indigenous Nigeria company) sign the Final Investment Decision (FID) for the construction of the project weekend.
Vanguard gathered that the facility would be the largest methanol plant in Africa and the first in Nigeria and the construction phase is expected to create 30,000 direct and indirect jobs and additional 5000 permanent jobs during the operations phase.
Shell. Photo: FIRCROFTFarmers from Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa and Rivers States, have hailed the judiciary for remaining the hope of the common man.
The farmers commended the ruling of the Dutch Appeal Court sitting in Hague, yesterday, which ordered Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) to pay compensation to them following the devastation of their farmlands through oil exploitation. x
Milieudefensie, the Dutch branch of Friends of The Earth, had in 2008 filed a lawsuit on behalf of the farmers against Shell following oil spills that destroyed their farmlands and other properties in Ikot Ada Udo community in Akwa Ibom State, Oruma community in Bayelsa State and Goi community in Rivers State.