Ecology

Shell faces a bill of hundreds of millions of dollars after accepting full liability for two massive oil spills that have devastated a Nigerian community of 69,000 people and may take at least 20 years to clean up.

Oil spill experts who have studied video footage of the spills at Bodo in Ogoniland say the spills could together be as large as the 1989 Exxon Valdez disater in Alaska when 10m gallons of oil was spilt. Until now, Shell has claimed that less than 40,000 gallons were spilt.

Papers seen by the Guardian show that following a class action suit in London over the past four months, the company has accepted responsibility for the double rupture in 2008 of the 50-year-old Bodo-Bonny trans-Niger pipeline that pumps 120,000 barrels of oil a day though the community.

Ogoniland is the small region of the Niger delta which threw out Shell in 1994 for its pollution but then saw eight of its leaders, including the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa, executed by the goverment.
The crude oil that gushed unchecked from the two Bodo spills which occurred within months of each other in 2008 has clearly devastated the 20 sq km network of creeks and inlets on which Bodo and as many as 30 other smaller settlements depend for food, water and fuel.

No attempt has been made to clean up the oil, which has collected on the creek sides, washes in and out on the tides and has seeped deep into the water table and farmland.