
By Moses Patience Chat
Shell Companies in Nigeria on Wednesday dismissed allegations that the firm was in violation of Nigerian Content laws in awarding contracts to indigenous players from its hosts communities in the Niger Delta.
This is even as the Ijaw Youth Council ( IYC) has threatened to shut down operations of Shell in the Niger Delta over alleged deprivation of host communities and local contractors in the oil and gas sector of jobs, in violation of Community Content Guidelines set out by the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board.
National spokesperson of IYC, Ebilade Ekerefe, said that despite the intervention of senior officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, officials of SPDC have terminated jobs meant for indigenous contractors.
Ekerefe claimed that contracts, which ought to be awarded to local contractors and jobs meant for host communities in the Niger Delta Region are being given to relatives of expatriates and other Nigerians at the helm of affairs of the multinationals, depriving the locals of their rights.
While dismissing the allegations raised by IYC, Media Relations Manager of the firm, Mrs. Abimbola Essien-Nelson, announced that Shell Companies in Nigeria has awarded contracts worth $1.9 billion to Nigerian companies in 2022 alone, and continues to work with NCDMB in building capacity of Nigerian companies in oil and gas sector.
According to her, the case raised by IYC was a review supervised by the NNPC and NCDMB via an open and transparent bidding process which resulted in the entrance of several new contractors.
Essien-Nelson further said all the bid winners, which are Nigerian companies, have commercial and technical competence as well as compliance with Nigerian Content regulations.
Her words: “The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited Joint Venture (SPDC JV) 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, supervised by the NNPC Upstream Investments Management Services (NUIMS), and the Nigerian Content Development & Monitoring Board (NCDMB), was conducted via an open and transparent bidding process which resulted in the entrance of several new contractors.
“The bid winners consisted some of these new companies, as well as companies previously involved in the contract. All the bid winners, which are Nigerian companies, demonstrated their commercial and technical competence as well as compliance with Nigerian Content regulations,” she stated.
The energy firm pledged that it would continue to support the development of local communities and companies.