SPDC responds to allegation of breaching Nigerian content law at Bayelsa EA fields

The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria denied claims that it was in violation of Nigerian Content laws at the EA fields in Bayelsa.

The Ijaw Youth Congress had on Monday alleged that SPDC had excluded indigenous players from its operations at the EA fields in breach of the community content guidelines.

The content guidelines were set out by the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board.

The youth group on Wednesday also said that it would resist any plot to exclude members of the host community by mobilising for a protest that would ground operations at the oil fields if the policy was not reversed.

They urged the Minister of Petroleum, retired President Muhammadu Buhari, and the leadership of NNPC Limited to prevail on SPDC to rethink and reciprocate the peaceful disposition of the host communities.

SPDC operates the EA shallow offshore fields off the Bayelsa coastline, deploying a Floating Production Storage and Offloading vessel, with a capacity to process and hold 1.4 million barrels of crude.

A statement, Mrs Abimbola Essien-Nelson, SPDC Media Relations Manager, said that Shell awarded contracts worth $1.9 billion to Nigerian companies and works with NCDMB in building the capacity of Nigerian companies in the oil and gas sector.

“The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited Joint Venture is committed to the development of businesses in the Niger Delta.

“Working with government and community stakeholders, we have supported capacity development in several Niger Delta-owned businesses.

“The case in hand is a scheduled review of our logistics contracting process that has been in place for years. The review was supervised by the NNPC Upstream Investments Management Services and the Nigerian Content Development & Monitoring Board.