‘Toxic legacy’ in Akwa Ibom as ExxonMobil plans exit

As oil giant ExxonMobil prepares to sell its onshore and shallow-water assets in Nigeria to a local firm, people living in its production areas say the oil major is leaving behind a devastated environment and refusing to negotiate and remediate polluted soil and waterways.

In February 2022, ExxonMobil announced it was selling 300 oil wells and 90 shallow-water and onshore platforms to a Nigerian firm, Seplat Energy, for $1.3 billion. ExxonMobil said it will now focus on deep-water operations.

In the southeastern state of Akwa Ibom, ExxonMobil’s operational base in Nigeria since 1961, residents say the company has not resolved several spill-related compensation and remediation claims in Ibeno, a fishing town near the Atlantic Ocean. Decades of oil production there have contaminated land and water, making it difficult for locals to fish or farm.

“Since they announced the sale, we have sent many letters and petitions, but Mobil has not answered,” Godwin Efanga, president of the town council of Upenekang, Ibeno’s main community, said.

“They want to leave after damaging the environment without compensation.”

Between 2010 and 2021, major transnational oil companies have completed 26 significant sales, retaining interests only in deep-water production or leaving the country entirely, according to the Stakeholder Democracy Network, a nonprofit focusing on the impact of the extractives industry in the Niger Delta.

The companies say they’re divesting in favor of cleaner energy and because of security concerns in some areas. But the democracy group says the firms have also been unsettled by recent cases in which affected communities successfully sued companies for damage to the Niger Delta in U.K. and Dutch courts.

An oil spill in the Niger Delta. Communities here say transnational companies are selling off their assets without taking responsibility for environmental damage they have caused.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari withdrew an initial approval of the ExxonMobil sale following a protest by state-oil company NNPC, which argued it had first right to buy the assets. In February this year, Seplat said it was confident it would conclude the transaction before Buhari leaves office in May.

A new petroleum industry law enacted in 2021 requires oil companies abandoning their assets to set up a “decommissioning fund.” At a March 22 event calling attention to pollution in the area, representatives of Ibeno said ExxonMobil has not done this. They also said the oil giant has not conducted a comprehensive audit of impacts of its operations in the area.

ExxonMobil spokesperson Oge Udeagha, did not respond to requests for comments after initially asking for questions to be sent via text message.

“​Communities like Ibeno complain that they were not consulted when ExxonMobil started oil exploitation in their communities. They now feel insulted and abused by the same corporation divesting without any level of consultation or communication with them,” said Nnimmo Bassey of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation.

“They see the company as trying to foist a toxic legacy on them and shrug off their responsibly to remediate, restore the polluted environments and make do reparations.”

This article is republished from Mongabay.