Shell To Sack 200 Employees In 2024

Oil major, Shell, will be sacking 200 employees in 2024 and has placed another 130 positions at its low carbon solutions unit as part of a drive to reduce the headcount in the unit, which numbers around 1,300 employees. Some of these roles will be integrated into other parts of Shell, which employs more than 90,000 people, the company added. The job cut represents at least 15 per cent of the workforce in the division as the firm plans to scale back its hydrogen business as part of the Chief Executive Officer, CEO, Wael Sawan’s drive to boost profits, it said on Wednesday. The staff cuts and organizational changes come after Sawan, who took the helm in January, vowed to revamp Shell’s strategy to focus on higher-margin projects, steady oil output and grow natural gas production, reports Reuters. “We are transforming our Low Carbon Solutions (LCS) business to strengthen its delivery in our core low-carbon business areas such as transport and industry,” the company said. The LCS operations include the hydrogen and other businesses looking at decarbonizing the transport and industry sectors, but do not include the renewable power business. Shell managers last week held several town hall meetings with the LCS division where the job cuts and organizational changes were announced, company sources said. The division also includes Shell’s carbon capture and storage and nature-based solutions businesses, which will not be impacted by the current round of cuts, the sources said. The main focus of the changes has been the hydrogen business. Shell plans to sharply scale back its hydrogen light mobility operations, which develop technologies for light passenger vehicles, and will focus on heavy mobility and industry, the company said. It will also merge two of four general manager roles in the hydrogen business, Shell said. The retreat from the light mobility sector follows the departure of the business’s manager Oliver Bishop several months ago. Bishop today leads rival BP’s global hydrogen mobility business. Shell was one of the early backers of hydrogen-fuelled cars, but it has in recent years closed a number of hydrogen fuelling stations around the world, including in Britain, as consumers opted instead for electric vehicles. The company last year started building a 200 megawatt electrolyser plant in the Netherlands, Europe’s largest, to produce zero-carbon, or green, hydrogen. It also applied for a grant to develop a low-carbon hydrogen hub in Louisiana, but the project was not among seven announced earlier this month that will share $7 billion in U.S. federal grants to jump-start the emerging industry. “Our global hydrogen portfolio remains a key part of our efforts to address the commercial and technical challenges in scaling our Low Carbon Solutions business,” Shell said. “We will be disciplined in only making investments with the highest chance of creating value and lowering emissions.” Sawan said last week that Shell is changing its “pathway” towards meeting its ambition to become a net zero carbon emitting company by 2050. “For avoidance of doubt, what hasn’t changed is the destination that we have set for ourselves,” Sawan told the Energy Intelligence Forum in London. Sawan came under pressure internally last month after two employees issued a rare open letter urging him not to scale back investments in renewable energy, sparking an internal debate. Shares of Shell and its European peers BP and TotalEnergies have come under pressure in recent years as investors fret over future returns as they lower oil and gas production. U.S. rivals Exxon Mobil and Chevron have doubled down on fossil fuel production, announcing large acquisitions of oil companies in recent weeks.

ERA/FOEN Decries Shell’s Slow Response To multiply Spills In Bayelsa

The Environmental Rights Action/ Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) has expressed dismay at Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) slow response to multiple crude oil spills in the Diebu Creek in Peremabiri community in Southern Ijaw Local Government Area of Bayelsa State. ERA/FoEN in a statement by the Communication Officer, Elvira Jordan on Sunday, said its position came in the light of a field visit by ERA/FoEN team led by Programme Manager Niger Delta Resource Center, Comrade Alagoa Morris.   The NGO had visited the community with a team of journalists following a save-a-soul call from the community over multiple spills along the Diebu creek. Prior to the visit, the community had informed ERA/FoEN that Shell said a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) was to visit the site of the spill but failed to keep show-up, including the very date ERA/FoEN visited. After two unkempt JIV, the JIV only took place a day after the field visit by ERA/FoEN with Shell sponsored news statements that attributed one of the spills to equipment failure and the other tagged inconclusive. Speaking to the team, the youth president of the community, Benjamin Ebinibo expressed his dissatisfaction over the conduct of Shell and their response to spill issues. According to him, the people of Peremabiri are not known for sabotaging crude oil pipelines and so the leak must have been from faulty Shell equipment. Describing the plight of the women of the community, the Assistant Women Leader of Peremabiri, Favour Morganlamented that the recurring spills in their community, and how it has destroyed their environment and collapsed fishing and farming activities, which is their primary source of livelihood.  On his part, the CDC Chairman of the community, Basil Young narrated the ordeal of the people of Peremabiri, citing issues ranging fromneglect suffered by the community as host community in terms of absence of basic amenities to negative impacts of the current oil spill incidents. Reacting to the spill incident, the Executive Director of ERA/FoEN, Chima Williams said “we have it on record thatthe promise by Shell to visit the Spill site for JIV on 10th and 11th October, 2023 did not happen. Rather, we were duly informed that the JIV took place a day after the field visit by the ERA/FoEN led team; on the 12th October.” According to him, “going to sites and communities of interest with the media by ERA/FoEN is a deliberate strategy to enable stakeholders to come face to face with victims of incidents and get information from primary sources.” Williams further stated that while booming crude oil to prevent spreading on the surface of water is commendable, such actions do not prevent the soluble elements of crude oil to have chemical reaction within the marine ecosystem, adding that this is why effective and prompt clean up should follow booming of crude oil in any marine ecosystem. He called on Shell to take immediate action to clean up and restore the environment around Peremabiri community, and admonished NOSDRA and the Bayelsa State Ministry of Environment to follow up on spill incidents and ensure clean up and compensation matters are affected within a reasonable time frame.

Hold Shell accountable for Rivers’ oil spills, Oilwatch tells HYPREP  

Oilwatch Africa has called on the Hydrocarbons Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP) to hold Shell Petroleum Company for recent oil spills in Rivers State. Oilwatch Africa is a civil society organization with a focus on the environment. According to a statement recently in Abuja by the CSO’s, Media and Communication Lead, Miss Kome Odhomor, two major oil spills within a week in Rivers State, is an indication that oil companies are yet to show seriousness about ensuring maintaining their facilities. “It is quite alarming that rather than remediating the harms, more investments are being made to expand the areas of threat. New investments in the fossil fuels sector and incessant new oil spills threaten to push the world into climate catastrophe and expose the wrongheaded pathway taken by nations when they gather at COPs for climate negotiations. “One oil spill was reported from a pipeline owned by Shell in Eteo community on June 13, 2023, while another occurred at Eleme Local Government Area of Rivers State on Sunday, June 18, 2023, in Oke-Olebo stream which is the only source of fresh water for the community,” the statement reads. A member of the Oilwatch steering committee, Nnimmo Bassey, reacting to the spill said “We have always advocated for a cleaner environment and we charge the Hydrocarbons Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP) to take into account the new oil spills that threaten to derail the ongoing cleanup process. Steps should be taken to ensure accountability by offending parties”. Oilwatch Africa Coordinator Salome Nduta expressed dissatisfaction over the action of oil companies in Nigeria and across Africa. He said, “Recently at the just concluded Africa Energy Summit held in the UK, it showed that Africa is not just a geographical location but it is also a cow that should be milked dry for the gains of her captors. Polluters should be held accountable for loss and damage inflicted on communities in Africa”. Oilwatch Africa called on the Nigerian government to take charge and ensure the proper clean-up of polluted sites as well as payment of compensation for damages suffered. “As a group, we further charge all African governments to invest in renewable energy taking into consideration the true cost of extraction which is causing more harm than good to her peoples,” the group said.