Nigerian
Court Fines Oil Giant Nearly $10 Million For Spill
Tuesday, December 9, 2003
U.S.-based
oil firm Exxon Mobil was ordered by a court in Nigeria
to pay almost $10 million in damages to three Niger
Delta communities for a 1998 oil spill, Nigerian
officials said yesterday.
In
a judgment handed down Friday, Justice Abdullahi
Mustapha of Lagos' Federal High Court said the spill
of between 40,000 and 100,000 barrels of crude oil
into the region's river and
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marshlands
caused by a rupture to an Exxon pipeline had resulted in
environmental damage to the nearby villages of Bonny, Brass
and Andoni.
In a statement yesterday that announced Exxon's intention
to appeal, company spokesman Udom Inoyo said the company
had closely monitored the effects of the spill and that
"there was no discernible adverse effect on the people
and the environment."
Nigeria
is the fifth-largest source of U.S. oil imports and Exxon
pumps about 800,000 barrels per day, much of it from the
Niger Delta region (CNN.com, Dec. 8).
According
to Integrated Regional Information Networks, relations between
oil firms and local towns are often tense, and impoverished
communities have accused the joint ventures by foreign companies
and the government of cheating them out of wealth and harming
the environment (IRIN, Dec. 8).
Copyright, National Journal Group, Year.
