Shell Oil In Nigeria.

Essay by vjvj1234College, UndergraduateA, January 2004

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Shell Oil in Nigeria

Shell Oil in Nigeria

This paper will detail that Shell Oil did not adhere to their corporate social responsibility in Nigeria. Shell utilized the community to gain profits while depleting the land resources leaving Ogoniland and nearby delta communities in ruins.

The people of Nigeria are made up of different ethnic groups. Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba and Ibo are 65 percent of the population while the other 35 percent consist of various ethnic groups including Ogoni people. The River states that included Ogoniland were among the poorest in Nigeria. Most of the adult population before the drilling was fishers or farmers. Unemployment was estimated at 30 percent and three-quarters of adult population are illiterate. Life expectancy for Nigerian males is 54 and females 51 years of age. The Ogoni people lived in a 384 square mile area in the heart of the Nigerian oil field, with a population of approximately half of million by mid-90's.

The Royal Dutch/Shell Group was the world's largest integrated petroleum company comprised over 2000 separate entities. Headquarters in London and Hague. (106,000 employees worldwide) Chairmanship rotated between Shell's president and Royal's President, governed by a six-member board. The company started drilling for oil in 1956; during the years 1958-1994 30 billion dollars of oil was extracted from Nigeria. The venture to drill was a joint decision, with 55 percent going to the Nigerian Federal Government, 30 percent to Shell, and 15 percent to two European companies.

Shell Nigeria corporate objective was "to find, produce, and deliver hydrocarbons safely, responsibly, and economically for the benefit of our stakeholders." (294 pp.) The company did not uphold any of those objectives towards the Ogoni and Delta people; they too are stakeholders and deserve to be treated as such. Shell Oil is guilty of destroying the environment...