Nigerian official says Shell to lose Ogoniland license

Ogoni activist Ken Saro Wiwa was executed in 1995 by the Nigerian State, at the behest of corporations (including Shell) that operated on the ancestral Ogoni lands in the Niger delta.

Now, eleven years later, the resurgence of anti-corporate militancy represented by MEND has combined with a gradually deteriorating relationship between Shell Oil and the Nigerian government. Shell’s license to kill has been revoked.

Of course some other bunch of crooks will occupy the vacuum. Chevron perhaps? But this offers more evidence of the power that delta rebels now possess, in this age of high stake oil politics.

THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS – The Nigerian government plans to take away Royal Dutch Shell’s oil operating license in the restive Ogoni region of the Niger Delta, an official visiting The Hague said Friday.

“We are going to revoke Shell’s license to operate in Ogoniland,” Bamibele Ogedenjbe told Dow Jones Newswires.

Ogedenjbe is assistant director at the Nigeria Department of Petroleum Resources, which oversees permits of the country’s hydrocarbon licenses.

She was speaking on the sidelines of an oil industry conference.

Shell spokeswoman Eurwen Thomas in London said the company was “aware the Nigerian government has been reviewing licenses ahead of the next bidding round, but no final decisions have been reached….

Posted by Szamko
Just tries to tell the truth.

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