Shell, others pay NDDC $142m in one year

A total of $142.5 million was paid to the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) last year by Shell Petroleum Development of Nigeria Ltd (SPDC) and Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company Limited (SNEPCo).

According to a statement from Shell Nigeria, SPDC paid $112.5 million while SNEPCo remitted $30 million compared to $59.04 million by SPDC and $20.73 million by SNEPCo in 2022.

The contributions came from the Shell companies on behalf of themselves and their respective partners –. Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC); TotalEnergies, EP Nigeria Limited; NAOC; and Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria Limited – as statutory contributions to the interventionist agency.

“Our support for NDDC is part of our aspirations for the development of the Niger Delta which has also seen a wide range of social investments, including health and education,” Igo Weli, director and country head, corporate relations at SPDC said.

He added, “With the continuous support of our partners, we will continue to discharge our obligations to communities through statutory payments to agencies and projects executed in partnership with stakeholders.”

Support for education has led to the award of more than 3,450 secondary school grants, 3,772 university grants and 1,062 cradle-to-career scholarship grants since 2016, according to Shell Nigeria.

“Another investment has seen the introduction of the Health-in-Motion programme, providing free medical services directly to communities. Over one million individuals have benefited from the programme since its inception in the early 2000s. Also, the global Shell LiveWIRE entrepreneurship programme supported 73 businesses through training and mentorship programmes leading to 97 employment opportunities for Nigerians,” Shell Nigeria said.

In March, Nigeria regained its position as the biggest recipient of payments from Shell as production entitlement, royalties, taxes and fees to the government in 2023 amounted to $4.92 billion, the highest in four years.

The payout to Nigeria increased by 8.85 percent compared to the previous year, representing 16.67 percent of the company’s total payments to 26 countries, new data released by Shell shows.

Africa’s largest oil producer lost the top position in 2021, when Norway received the largest amount of about $4.52 billion compared to the $4.48 billion paid to the West African country.

In 2022, Nigeria dropped further to the third-biggest recipient of payments from the British oil giant, although the amount paid to it rose by 0.92 percent to $4.52 billion. The company’s payment to the country hit a high of $6.39 billion in 2018 but fell to $5.63 billion in 2019 and $3.24 billion in 2020.

Shell’s payments to countries where it has operations declined 14.11 percent year-on-year to $29.52 billion last year as its annual profit dropped 30 percent compared to its highest-ever earnings of $39.9 billion notched in 2022.

It said in its latest report that payments made to governments arose “from activities involving the exploration, prospection, discovery, development and extraction of minerals, oil and natural gas deposits or other materials (extractive activities)”.