Even before the recent announcement that Shell would fail to meet its Nigerian oil export contracts in December because of local unrest, the troubled Anglo-Dutch energy giant’s operations here were facing mounting pressure from critics ranging from lawmakers to guerrilla leaders.

The company faces fire from the Nigerian Senate, which has demanded that Shell pay $1.5 billion in damages for polluting Niger Delta communities, and from its own local workers who are threatening to strike to oppose any job losses coming from a restructuring plan.
Meanwhile, protesters from a fishing community have forced the firm to halt production of 114,000 barrels of crude per day, and the leader of one of the most dangerous factions in the Delta’s ceaseless political violence has warned that Shell’s platforms may be attacked.
A confidential report which Shell commissioned from a team of conflict experts warned that the company might have to quit Nigeria — its largest oil producing zone — by the end of 2008 if it cannot disassociate itself from a conflict now estimated to cost 1,000 lives per year.
The company “cannot ignore Niger Delta conflicts or its role in exacerbating these...The ‘do-nothing’ option is taken at (Shell’s) peril,” said the report, which was widely leaked to the media.
Shell declared “force majeure”, warning its clients that an ongoing dispute with ethnic Ijaw villagers from the Kula community which has shut down two oil flow stations would prevent it from honouring export contracts from its Bonny oil terminal.
Last month, hundreds of protesters from Kula boarded two Shell stations trapping 75 workers on board and halting production in order to press their demands for investment in their community.
The occupation ended two days later after government-brokered talks, but Shell has agreed not to restart production until the dispute is resolved.
The Kula occupation was largely peaceful, but violence often erupts in the Delta, and future protests might not all end so happily. In November, at least 17 Ijaw militants from the village of Ozobo were wounded after soldiers opened fire on them as they stormed a Shell drilling rig.
Ozobo leaders claim that eight protesters were shot dead. Shell’s has not found any evidence of fatalities.