Emmanuel Nlewedum, Port Harcourt
Host communities of the Oil Mining Lease OML 25, has issued eight conditions to Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria SPDC, for re-entry into the facility.
Traditional Rulers, Stakeholders and leaders of the communities of; Kula, Belema, Offoni-Ama and other sitelite communities in Akuku-Toru Local Government Area of Rivers State, gave the conditions at a meeting between representatives of SPDC, Rivers State Government, NNPCL and other joint venture partners at the Hotel Presidential in Port Harcourt.
Our correspondent reports that these conditions from the host communities is coming after the closure of the facilities (OML25) for almost seven years.
The host communities demanded that SPDC must offer scholarships to their children, provide employment to their unemployed, both the graduates and the skilled natives and sign a Purchase Order (PO) with Belema Oil, an indigenous firm which feeds crude and gas into Shell’s Bonny export terminal, as part of conditions to guarantee their re-entry into the facility.
They are also asking for community development, engagement of community people, provision of infrastructure and basic amenities amongst others as conditions that must be met before the SPDC can resume operations in the facility.
Addressing journalists on behalf of the host communities, at the end of the meeting, one of the stakeholders, Anabs Sara-Igbe, pointed out that the area has suffered for over 50 years of SPDC’s operation in the area without anything to show.
He said the communities are ready for resumption of oil exploration in the facility but insisted that until the conditions are met, SPDC won’t be allowed to come.
Sara-Igbe said: “We are ready for Shell to move in for operations immediately provided they carryout all the agreed terms. We have discussed about the welfare of the people. Alot of our children, graduates, skilled people are unemployed and we are saying that it has nothing to do with the Petroleum Industry Act, PIA, our people must be employed if SPDC is coming to work in our area”.
He emphasised that SPDC should follow up with the 8-point agreement with Belemaoil where he said community development which includes human capital development, training and employments inclusive and infrastructural development also inclusive.
“We also agreed that there should be operation and maintenance contract between Belemaoil and SPDC. We want them to sign that agreement and issue a PO to that effect.
“We also agreed here that there is no pipeline there now to lift this crude oil, so when they produce, they should pass this crude oil to Belemaoil facility for onward transmission to Bonny so that they can earn money and develop our place and SPDC and us have agreed that they must fulfil all these conditions before they would go ahead to operate the facilities,” Sara-Igbe added.
The communities warned the SPDC not to come to their community if they won’t keep to the terms of the agreement, saying; “If SPDC don’t sign the PO with Belemaoil they should not come in”.
Sara-Igbe said the first step to implementing these agreements is for SPDC to sign the agreement with Belemaoil, which he described as their eye. “They are in-between the community and SPDC. So if they do all that with Belemaoil and they give us those documents, then we have no problem”.
