Corporate Divestment and Environmental Liability in the Delta: The Devil in the Details.

The oil industry in the Niger Delta is experiencing seismic activity, pun intended. In October 2024, about ten months after Royal Dutch Shell (RDS) announced that it would sell its Nigerian onshore subsidiary, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC), to Renaissance consortium for up to $2.4 billion, the Nigerian government rejected the application for divestment. Shell’s move highlights a trend of international oil companies selling off their interests in the delta at an accelerated rate after several decades of a menacing presence and operations in the delta. As this essay will demonstrate, at stake are issues of environmental justice, corporate accountability, and the very survival of the region.

■ What is really happening?

It must be made clear from the outset that divestment is not the same as decommissioning. Decommissioning happens as a final act, whereby the company removes or deals with oil and gas infrastructure in the area that was previously used to support its operations — in a timely, safe, and environmentally responsible, or otherwise satisfactory, manner. There are elaborate provisions for this under sections 232 and 233 of Nigeria’s Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), 2021. In divestment, however, the oil companies are simply selling…