It’s Africa’s most populous nation. 150 million people live here, in a country roughly four times the size of the United Kingdom.
Oil and gas dominate the economy and the country is one of the world’s largest suppliers of energy.
Shell has been an important part of Nigeria’s growth for more than 50 years.
We were the pioneer of the oil and gas industry in Nigeria so you cannot be talking about oil and gas in Nigeria
without really acknowledging Shell’s position as prime.
So if you look at the Nigerian economy, you can’t really divorce Shell from it.
Shell was the first to export oil from Nigeria in 1958.
Shell is Nigeria’s oldest private sector energy company and has a long term commitment to the country and its people.
Today, Shell companies in Nigeria produce oil and gas both on and offshore…
they employ some 6000 people directly, and a further 20,000 indirectly.
Over 90% of its staff are Nigerian but there’s only so many people Shell can employ.
Shell recognizes that in such a big population there are huge problems finding work,
especially among the increasing numbers of young people.
Shell should employ more youths. Then all these problems in Nigeria will not happen.
Look at all these youths walking up and down, no job. It leads them to so many dangerous things.
It is not surprising that that woman is looking at Shell as an alternative government?
Shell will do everything possible to make sure that where we’re operating we can offer employment opportunities, but that will be limited
The Shell Petroleum Development Company’s main operating environment is the Niger Delta,
an area roughly the size of Portugal. The Delta is half swampland, with a maze of creeks and mangroves.
These are difficult working conditions. it’s hot and humid, mosquitoes bring malaria,
most people still have little access to electricity and running water, and education and health facilities are limited.
Every year, Shell companies in Nigeria pay billions of dollars to the Government in taxes and royalties,
but after 50 years of operating in Nigeria, the people of the Niger Delta remain impoverished.
The Shell Petroleum Development Company has extensive social investment programmes throughout the region.
but they recognize that it’s not enough.
SPDC invests in electricity and provides running water for people who would otherwise have no access to it.
As well, SPDC builds schools, and awards more than three thousand secondary and university scholarships every year.
as well as training young people in skills like welding and leadership development…
Go Nigeria.
The Shell Petroleum Development Company also invests in micro-credit programs throughout the Niger Delta,
giving small ventures a chance to grow their business.
They’re helping us, making us to have a sense of belonging, making us to look at what we are supposed to do…not to stay idle.
Because, in Nigeria, if you stay idle you’ll be a pauper and you’ll be a beggar.
And more than a quarter of a million people visit SPDC-run health clinics every year.
Women are able to have constant health checks during their pregnancies
and ensure their babies are well protected against many of the diseases of the Niger Delta.
The health care is good. They take proper care of us. All electricity is here, heating and everything.
They take good care of us.
Another SPDC health initiative, The Niger Delta AIDS Response program, known as NiDar, has been highly successful.
Last year, it won an award from The Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
I have up to 100 people that are openly living with status, and I have been working hard,
joining hands with Shell Petroleum Development Company to go out for outreaches, to campaign and create awareness in various communities.
Although many of these Shell initiatives are happening quietly in the background of Nigerian life,
they provide real benefits to the people of Nigeria, especially in the poorer communities of the Niger delta.
As well as social investments, Shell companies in Nigeria are also committed to Nigeria’s economic growth.
They award a high percentage of their contracts in Nigeria to Nigerian companies.
I think over the past four years, we’ve grown from under 300 employees to currently over 800 employees.
And I think work for Shell is the most significant component of this growth.
One of Shell’s biggest challenges in the Delta is something called ‘bunkering’.
It means stealing crude oil and it can lead to environmental damage like this extreme example just outside the perimeter of SPDC’s Soku Gas Plant.
Most people think that bunkering means someone turns up with a jerry can and a piece of rubber hose,
punches a hole in one of SPDC’s underground pipes and siphons off a few litres of crude oil.
The reality is a good deal worse – it’s theft on an industrial scale.
Here, SPDC staff find a bunkering point - an organized criminal gang has dug down to Shell’s main 12 inch pipeline about three feet under the surface,
drilled a hole in the pipe and then inserted a sophisticated tap, capable of siphoning off hundreds of barrels of crude oil.
Sometimes they even use trains to carry it off.
It’s fair to say that this is being run by highly-organized criminal gangs,
not just an individual, because you require money to buy barges, to hire trains,
to get tankers, and even to buy influences to move the stolen crude-oil along the highway, or wherever.
This is not what we want in Nigeria.
One of the biggest criticisms Shell has to face in Nigeria is the issue of flaring. When oil is extracted,
it is often rich with gas mixed in. In the past, there was little demand for this gas.
So oil companies burned it off.
Now there’s a growing concern about the environmental impact of flaring,
and an increasing demand to use gas to produce electricity in Nigeria.
SPDC and its partners in Nigeria have already invested over three billion dollars to install equipment to capture the gas and reduce flaring.
This has already reduced SPDC’s flaring in the Niger Delta by some 30 per percent and new projects are set to reduce that further.
Flaring is bad business…
for us to stop flaring we need to invest.
For us, even after we have the money, the environment itself needs to be stable enough to allow work to take place.
But there is absolutely no question about our commitment to ending flaring.
I envision a future where Shell’s legacy will be significantly better than the perception about us in the last 50 years.
And so for me, Shell is a force for good you know in this country and I really believe that if you even see the latest development in deep water,
nobody else will have blazed the trail if not for Shell and that in itself is generating a significant income for government,
significant opportunities for local industries in Nigeria.
While there is no doubt the development of the oil and gas industry is central to Nigeria’s future, there are of course significant challenges.
But Shell companies are working in partnership with the Nigerian people and their government to overcome those challenges,
so that together we can help build Nigeria’s future.