A United Nations panel said four international oil companies breached human rights obligations by selling their assets in Nigeria before carrying out remediation for damage caused by their oil spills in local communities.
In letters written to Eni, ExxonMoil, Shell, and TotalEnergies, the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights said the companies divested from Nigeria “without following a human rights-based approach and against international law obligations.”
The southern Niger Delta region — the main production hub in Africa’s top crude oil exporter — has been hit by spills in recent decades, upending livelihoods that depend on farming and fishing.
Shell was the latest of the four to sell its onshore oil assets in the country, in a $1.3 billion acquisition by local consortium Renaissance in March. Italy’s Eni completed a $783 million sale a year ago. The divestments by Shell and others were “an apparent attempt to pass on clean-up costs,” the UN group alleged. It estimates that the cost of repairing damage in just one Nigerian state is at least $12 billion, a bill that the companies taking over the assets are unwilling or unable to foot.