allAfrica.com: Ogoni is No Priority – Shell: “Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) said yesterday it is not in a hurry to resume oil production in Ogoniland” (ShellNews.net)

This Day (Lagos)

Mike Oduniyi

Port Harcourt

Posted 23 October 2004

Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) said yesterday it is not in a hurry to resume oil production in Ogoniland, more than a decade after it pulled out of the area located in the heartland of Rivers State. The company stopped production in Ogoni in 1993 at the height of the crisis in the area based on agitations by the indigenes who were complaining of neglect and deprivation.

US oil major ChevronTexaco, however, said it had re-opened two of its oil fields in the swamp of Warri, in Delta State, which now cuts the company's production losses down to 130,000 barrels per day (bpd) from 140,000 bpd.

Reacting to allegation by the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) which championed the agitations against its operating in 1990's that the oil firm was responsible for the deployment of military and paramilitary forces in to cow and suppress the indigenes Shell said in a statement signed by its External Relations Manager, Mr. Don Boham, that it was not responsible for the deployment of security agencies in the area.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200410220499.html