NIgerian Trovan trials - the spin and the spin

Pfizer employees in court over 1996 drug trial

8 hours ago

KANO, Nigeria (AFP) — Three employees of US drug giant Pfizer appeared in court Monday facing criminal charges filed by the Kano state government over an allegedly illegal 1996 meningitis drug trial.

The judge adjourned the case until March 4 when Pfizer's challenge to the court's legal jurisdiction will be heard.

Pfizer employees Bashir Bello, Segun Dogunro and Lere Baale stood in the witness box for the first time since civil and criminal proceedings were launched against the drug firm and eight of its staff eight months ago.

The accused face 65-charge counts of criminal conspiracy, causing grievous harm and culpable homicide.

The Kano state government filed civil and criminal suits demanding 2.75 billion dollars (two billion euros) in compensation from Pfizer and prosecution of its staff involved in testing Trovan during a triple epidemic of measles, cholera and meningitis in which over 12,000 people died.

The drug test allegedly led to 11 deaths and deformities in 189 other cases such as blindness, deafness, brain damage and paralysis.

Pfizer denies any wrongdoing and insists that the trial was conducted with the approval of the Nigerian government and conformed to ethical procedures.

The presiding judge Shehu Atiku issued a summons Monday for the managing director of Neimeth Pharmaceuticals, an off-shoot of Pfizer to appear before it to answer the same charges.

Sam Ohabunwa was managing director of Pfizer Nigeria when the illegal trial was alleged to have taken place.

Three US-based Pfizer staff also accused of involvement have not made an appearance but the prosecution said it had submitted extradition requests to the Nigerian justice minister.


Nigeria: Trovan Trials - Let's Keep the Stream of Justice Pure

This Day (Lagos)

OPINION
31 January 2008
Posted to the web 1 February 2008

Nzeshi Ikedi
Lagos

"Pfizer used me as a guinea pig to test an unapproved drug. I am left deaf and dumb/brain damage", "I am reduced to nothing by Pfizer" These were some of the inscriptions contained on placards carried by some very able-bodied Kano State indigenes who claimed to be the victims of the Pfizer clinical investigations of its new drug Trovan in 1996.

In December, these demonstrators, about 70 of them, besieged the Kano State High court in Audu Bako Secretariat Kano, presided over by Chief Justice of the state, Hon Ciroma Yusuf. They claimed to be showing their solidarity with the government of Kano State in its fight against Pfizer.

The State Attorney General instituted criminal and civil proceedings against Pfizer Incorporated in May 2007. Pfizer Nigeria and others are accused on serious charges for neglecting their individual and collective responsibilities in the clinical investigation. Supposedly this resulted in 11 unnecessary deaths, though Pfizer vigorously denies the charge.

There was something rather sad, however, in seeing protesters storming a court trial in the name of victims. It was sad because in no place in the statements against the accused was the welfare of these victims paramount. Moreover, should the state win in this civil suit, nothing in the damages (spoils or booty) asked for will go to this group of people who claim victimhood.

Nevertheless, the protestors disrupted a court session, risking being charged with contempt of court in their act to intimidate the court of the Hon Chief Justice. They seemed unaware that they were all on their own and the petitioners were not acting on their behalf. They seemed not to realize they would be left high and dry, even in the event the case is decided against Pfizer with billions of dollars awarded in damages.

I do not want to comment more on the merits of the issues being canvassed as they are pending in court. I certainly do not want to be placed in contempt of court myself by making rash assumptions about the facts of the case. However, I do want to comment as an observer of the court proceedings in Kano State on what I consider to be a dangerous trend that has come to characterize these trials in the state.

The Trovan issue is subject in six different suits in three locations in the country. The then Attorney General of the Federation, Bayo Ojo had earlier, five days before the end of his tenure in office, filed a criminal and a civil case, in Federal High courts in Abuja, against the same defendants. The interesting part of this issue is that all the cases filed by the law officers of these different governments are nothing but mirror images of one another in terms of grounds, defendants, counsels, claims etc.

The most authoritative document used by the petitioners of these suits is the never adopted or approved unpublished report of the Nasidi Commission of Inquiry instituted by the federal government to look into the conduct of the clinical investigation. This document is currently being challenged by Pfizer in a suit instituted at the Federal High court Abuja. The company wants the court to quash the report.

The sixth case is that brought up in the Ikeja High court by Pfizer, challenging the service of summonses against its staff in Lagos.

My worry is why is it that only in Kano trials do demonstrators invade court sittings? What does this practice tell of us? Does it reveal an impatient and violent people, who would not want or trust justice to run its normal fair course? Are the protests part of a pattern that left many people dead in the wake of local government elections in the state?

Granted, the Trovan demonstration was mostly peaceful until the presiding judged ordered them out of the court premises.

Let us examine the implications of these demonstrations. The first implication is that they are contemptuous. However, while court invasions easily achieve their aims of putting judges and other judicial officers under undue pressure, it is debatable if they play any influence in determining the outcome of trials. But, whether or not the protests are effective, they assault the very foundation of the rule of law and fair hearing.

I must admit that everyone has a right to express his or her feelings, but this must be done by lawful means. Going to court is an expression of this right. The rules of court must be respected at all times. Of all the places where law and other must be maintained, it is in the law courts where it matters most. The course of justice must not be deflected or interfered with. Those who strike at impartial justice strike at the very foundations of our society.

Relevant Links West Africa Health and Medicine Legal and Judicial Affairs Nigeria

Here, I must congratulate the Chief Justice of Kano State and the Presiding judge of the court for his wisdom in ordering the protesters out of the court premises. To underscore the importance of his order, the learned judge stood down further proceedings of the day until it was reported to him that his orders had been carried out to the letter.

Another implication is that such demonstrations further weakens the administration of justice as witnesses, counsels, pressmen, litigants and defendants may find it too volatile to attend court sessions. In the process, such events delay the administration of justice. With such circumstances, how do we assure expatriates mentioned in the Pfizer cases to be confident enough of their safety if they attend the court proceedings?

Ikedi wrote from Lagos

Corporatocracy UK, Royal Dutch Shell, Philip Watts and Nigeria

FSA Interrogation of Sir Philip Watts following resignation in disgrace as Shell Group Chairman

November 10th, 2007 by johnadonovan

By Alfred and John Donovan

Many current and former Shell employees would probably have loved to have been present when Sir Philip Watts, publicly described as a “crook”, was interrogated by the UK Financial Services Authority in June 2004 soon after he was forced to resign in disgrace following the Shell reserves securities fraud. Sir Philip did negotiate a nice sum of hush money, reportedly $18.5 million in the form of a severance/pension pot package.

At long last all interested parties now have, for the first time, the opportunity to read a full transcript of his interrogation. It is published on what the Financial Times has described as an “anti-Shell” website: www.royaldutchshellplc.com

Transcript of Financial Services Authority Interview with Sir Philip Watts: 24 June 2004

EXTRACT: Samantha Griffin for the FSA to Sir Philip:

“You are not under arrest and are free to leave any time. The interview is being conducted under caution. That is to say you do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in Court. Anything you say may be given in evidence. Do you understand?”

Link for searchable Transcript of Financial Services Authority Interview with Sir Philip Watts: 24 June 2004: 75 pages - every page marked “CONFIDENTIAL”

http://www.shellnews.net/classactiondocs/PhilWatts_FSA_Interview_OCR.pdf

(Adobe Reader is needed to read this pdf file. Please be patience as there are 75 pages. To download a FREE Adobe Reader click on the adobe link: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html)

Confidential Royal Dutch Shell documents are published on the non-commercial website every day.

Sizzling revelations in the pipeline

Minutes of meetings of the Committee of Managing Directors of the Royal Dutch Shell Group (the “CMD”) are being published over the next few days, including a meeting held just before the announcement to a stunned world of the reserves scandal. Other highly sensitive matters, including Shell’s condescending attitude towards the Russian energy giant Gazprom, are covered in the minutes. For examples, the CMD when discussing a proposed joint project with Gazprom…

“expressed considerable concern over a number of aspects… including… the ability of Gazprom to deliver on its promises.”

This was before Shell’s humiliation when Gazprom took over control of the Sakhalin-2 project leaving Shell as a junior partner. Every page of the minutes are marked “Most Confidential”.

Royaldutchshellplc.com is the exact dotcom domain name for the quarter trillion dollar company: Royal Dutch Shell Plc. Shell failed in its attempt in proceedings via the World Intellectual Property Organization in 2005 to seize the domain name. The loss of the domain name has resulted in some amusing confusion and yet more humiliation for Shell.

A tall tale

One manifestation of the confusion is a bizarre relationship with Shell in which the Donovan’s forward on job applications and business proposals meant for Shell. Michiel Brandjes, the Company Secretary and General Counsel Corporate of Royal Dutch Shell Plc has recently given written authority for the website owners, 90 year Alfred Donovan and his 60 year old son John (the authors of this article), recently described as “Online Revolutionaries” by The Sunday Telegraph, to vet incoming email meant for Shell. This was after the site received an email offering for sale a new 50 story skyscraper in Bahrain.

The email received from Michiel Brandjes: Thu 08/11/2007 12:14

Subject: BAHRAIN 50 STOREY FREEHOLD TOWER

Dear Mr.Donovan,

Thank you for forwarding this message. Please feel free not to bother forwarding obvious “spam” like the email about real estate in Bahrain. In case of doubt we would prefer to receive the email though in order that appropriate attention can be given to it. Thank you.

Wiwa v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, Wiwa v. Anderson and Wiwa v. Shell Petroleum Development Company

Synopsis

Wiwa v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, Wiwa v. Anderson, and Wiwa v. Shell Petroleum Development Company are three lawsuits brought against the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company and Shell Transport and Trading Company (Royal Dutch/Shell), the head of its Nigerian operation, and Royal Dutch/Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary, charging them with complicity in human rights abuses against the Ogoni people in Nigeria.

Status

Since May 2004, the plaintiffs have been awaiting the resolution of various discovery disputes pending in the United States District Court of the Southern District of New York. CCR is also waiting for a decision on other motions that have been pending since September 2003 and May 2004. More than 10 years after the filing of the initial complaint against Royal Dutch/Shell, the plaintiffs eagerly wait for their day in court to hold the defendants accountable for their injuries and the deaths of their loved ones.

Description

Wiwa v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, Wiwa v. Anderson, and Wiwa v. Shell Petroleum Development Company are three lawsuits filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and co-counsel from EarthRight International on behalf of relatives of murdered activists who were fighting for human rights and environmental justice in Nigeria. The lawsuits are brought against the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company and Shell Transport and Trading Company (Royal Dutch/Shell); the head of its Nigerian operation, Brian Anderson; and the Nigerian subsidiary itself, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC).

The defendants are charged with complicity in human rights abuses against the Ogoni people in Nigeria, including summary execution, crimes against humanity, torture, inhumane treatment, arbitrary arrest, wrongful death, assault and battery, and infliction of emotional distress. The cases were brought under the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) and the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA). The case against Royal Dutch/Shell also alleges that the corporation violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.

Royal Dutch/Shell began using land in the Ogoni area of Nigeria for oil production in 1958. Pollution resulting from the oil production has contaminated the local water supply and agricultural land upon which the region’s economy is based. Also, Royal Dutch/Shell for decades worked with the Nigerian military regime to suppress any and all demonstrations that were carried out in opposition to the oil company’s activities. The oil company and its Nigerian subsidiary provided monetary and logistical support to the Nigerian police and bribed witnesses to produce false testimonies.

In 1995, the company and its subsidiary colluded with the Nigerian government to bring about the arrest and execution of the Ogoni 9. The Ogoni 9 was a group of activists that were hanged on November 10, 1995 after a "trial" before a special military tribunal based on fabricated charges. One of the nine, Ken Saro-Wiwa, was an internationally renowned writer and activist and was the leader of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP). He is represented in this case by Ken Wiwa, Mr. Saro-Wiwa’s son and the executor of his estate. Mr. Saro-Wiwa was outspoken in condemning Shell for polluting and destroying the Ogoni ecosystem, and he led the struggle for the autonomy of the Ogoni people and for an equitable distribution of Nigeria's oil riches.

Other MOSOP leaders include John Kpuinen, the Deputy President of MOSOP's youth wing, the National Youth Council of Ogoni People (NYCOP), and Dr. Barinem Kiobel, the Honorable Commissioner of the Ministry of Commerce and Tourism and member of the Rivers State Executive Council. These MOSOP activists, along with six others, including Saturday Doobee, Felix Nuate, and Daniel Gbokoo, were known as the Ogoni 9. Human rights groups and political leaders around the world condemned both the executions and the lack of due process that was accorded to the victims in connection with the so-called trial.

Other incidents of torture and detention include that of Owens Wiwa, who was detained for more than a year under false charges to prevent him from protesting. During his detention he was beaten repeatedly. Michael Vizor, then a NYCOP vice-president, was beaten by police in front of his children when he would not confess to a false charge. He also had 400,000 (Naira) in cash and documents stolen from his house during his arrest. He was further tortured and denied medical assistance during his wrongful detention. Another plaintiff, Uebari N-nah, was shot and killed in October 1993 near a Shell flow station at Korokoro, Rivers State, Nigeria.

Other plaintiffs were attacked by troops summoned by Royal Dutch/Shell during a peaceful demonstration against Shell and the Nigerian military regime for bulldozing farmland in Bira Gokana for a pipeline contracted by Willbros West Africa, Inc. Karalolo Kogbara was shot by Nigerian troops while she was speaking out against the bulldozing of her crops. Plaintiff Michael Tema Vizor was arrested, beaten and detained for four days without charge for participating in the same protest.

Timeline

CCR appealed this decision to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

On September 14, 2000, the Court of Appeals reversed the district court’s decision, ruling that the United States is a proper forum because of personal jurisdiction over the defendants who had an office in New York. The case was remanded back to the district court.

The defendants petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Court of Appeal’s decision, arguing that the case should be dismissed because the ATCA and TVPA could not be used to punish their actions.

On March 26, 2001, the Supreme Court rejected the defendant’s writ of certiorari.

Also in March, 2001, the plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against Brian Anderson, former Managing Director of Royal Dutch/Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary.

Royal Dutch/Shell and Mr. Anderson filed motions to dismiss the case, arguing that the plaintiffs did not have a legal basis for their claims.

On February 22, 2002, U.S. District Court Judge Kimba Wood denied the defendant’s motions to dismiss and found that the plaintiffs were entitled to bring their actions under the ATCA, TVPA, and RICO. The Court also found that plaintiffs had adequately set forth their case that Royal Dutch knew what its Nigerian subsidiary was doing.

In September 2003, the cases against Royal Dutch/Shell and Brian Anderson were amended to include additional plaintiffs.

In April, 2004, an additional case was brought against Shell Petroleum Development Company.

At the end of May 2004, discovery in the cases officially closed.

In May and June 2004, CCR requested discovery conferences on numerous inadequate responses by the defendants, and to contest the defendants' improper discovery requests.

On August 15, 2005, Magistrate Judge Pitman rejected defendants’ motion to dismiss a related case, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum. In response, Royal Dutch/Shell filed a brief challenging the validity of the claims in Wiwa and claimed that the Supreme Court ruling in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain excluded the human rights claims in Wiwa.

On January 3, 2006, Judge Wood ruled that she would accept further briefing from any of the parties on the impact of Sosa so that the matter would be completely briefed.

On January 20, 2006, CCR and defendants filed briefs on the impact of Sosa.

In September 2006, Judge Wood dismissed plaintiffs’ summary execution, forced exile and right to life, liberty and personal assembly claims, but allowed plaintiffs’ claims for aiding and abetting liability in general, as well as the claims for crimes against humanity, torture and prolonged arbitrary detention. The court certified all issues for appeal to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, and both plaintiffs and defendants petitioned to the Second Circuit for appeal.

In January 2007, the Second Circuit ordered an appeal in the case.

On July 18, 2007, CCR filed an amicus brief in a related case.

Attached Documents

Attachment	Size
Wiwa_ATCAQ&A.pdf	227.01 KB
Wiwa_Complaint_03_01.pdf	36.35 KB
Wiwa_ProposedAndersonComplaint_06_03.pdf	129.43 KB
Wiwa_Proposedwiwacomplaint_06_03.pdf	144.77 KB

The Peninsula (Qatar): Oil boom: The winners and losers

Web posted at: 11/16/2007 8:44:41
Source ::: LAT-WP
By Steven Mufson

High oil prices are fuelling one of the biggest transfers of wealth in history. Oil consumers are paying $4bn to $5bn more for crude oil every day than they did just five years ago, pumping more than $2 trillion into the coffers of oil companies and oil-producing nations this year alone. The consequences are evident in minds and mortar: anger at Chinese motor-fuel pumps and inflated confidence in the Kremlin; new weapons in Chad and new petrochemical plants in Saudi Arabia; no-driving campaigns in South Korea and bigger sales for Toyota hybrid cars; a fiscal burden in Senegal and a bonanza in Brazil. In Burma, recent demonstrations were triggered by a government decision to raise fuel prices.

In the United States, the rising bill for imported petroleum lowers already anemic consumer savings rates, adds to inflation, worsens the trade deficit, undermines the dollar, and makes it more difficult for the Federal Reserve to balance its competing goals of fighting inflation and sustaining growth.

High prices have given a boost to oil-rich Alaska, which in September raised the annual oil dividend paid to every man, woman and child living there for a year to $1,654, an increase of $547 from last year. In other states, high prices create greater incentives for pursuing non-oil energy projects that once might have looked too expensive and hurt earnings at energy-intensive companies like airlines and chemical makers. Even Kellogg’s cited higher energy costs as a drag on its third-quarter earnings.

With crude oil prices flirting with $100 a barrel, there is no end in sight to the redistribution of more than 1 per cent of the world’s gross domestic product. Earlier oil shocks generated giant shifts in wealth and pools of petrodollars, but they eventually faded and economies adjusted. This new high point in petroleum prices has arrived over four years, and many believe it will represent a new plateau even if prices drop back somewhat in coming months.

“There’s never been anything like this on a sustained basis the way we’ve seen the last couple of years,” said Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard University economics professor and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. Oil prices “are not spiking; they’re just rising,” he added. The benefits, to the tune of $700bn a year, are flowing to the world’s oil-exporting countries.

Two of those nations — Iran and Venezuela — may be better able to defy the Bush administration because of swelling oil revenue. Venezuela has used its oil wealth to dispense patronage around South America, vying for influence even with longtime US allies. And Iran could be less vulnerable to sanctions designed to pressure it into giving up its nuclear programme or opening it to inspection.

Saudi Arabia

The world’s biggest oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, is using its rejuvenated oil riches to build four cities. Projects like these are designed to burnish the country’s image, develop a non-oil economy and generate enough employment to maintain social stability.

One is King Abdullah Economic City, a mega-project on the kingdom’s west coast. According to Emaar, a real estate development firm in Dubai, the city will cost $27bn and be spread across an area three times the size of Manhattan. A contractor who works there said a wide, palm tree-lined boulevard cuts a dozen miles across an ocean of sand and ends at the Red Sea. Construction workers in hard hats are navigating excavators, dredging land and digging foundations for a power plant, a desalinisation plant and a port. The project will eventually include an industrial district, a financial island, a university and a residential area and is expected to house 2 million people.

Despite mega-projects like this, Saudi Arabia is running a budget surplus. It has paid down much of the foreign debt it accumulated in the late 1990s and is adding to its foreign-exchange reserves.

Russia

Russia, the world’s No. 2 oil exporter, shows oil’s transformational impact in the political as well as the economic realm. When Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000, less than two years after the collapse of the ruble and Russia’s default on its international debt, the country’s policymakers worried that 2003 could bring another financial crisis. The country’s foreign-debt repayments were scheduled to peak at $17bn that year.

Inside the Kremlin, that sum now looks like peanuts. Russia’s gold and foreign-currency reserves have risen by more than that amount just since July. As Putin nears the end of his second term as president, the soaring price of oil has helped allow Russia to increase the federal budget ten-fold since 1999 while paying off its foreign debt and building the third-largest gold and hard-currency reserves in the world, about $425bn.

“The government is much stronger, much more self-assured and self-confident,” said Vladimir Milov, head of the Institute of Energy Policy in Moscow and a former deputy minister of energy. “It believes it can cope with any economic crisis at home.”

With good reason. Using energy revenue, the government has built up a $150bn rainy-day account called the Stabilisation Fund. “This financial independence has contributed to more assertive actions by Russia in the international arena,” Milov said. “There is a strong drive within part of the elite to show that we are off our knees.”

The result: Russia is trying to reclaim former Soviet republics as part of its sphere of influence. Freed of the need to curry favor with foreign oil companies and Western bankers, Russia can resist what it views as American expansionism, particularly regarding Nato enlargement and US missile defence in Eastern Europe, and forge an independent approach to contentious issues like Iran’s nuclear programme.

The bonanza of petrodollars has also led to a consumer boom evident in the sprawling malls, 24-hour hyper-markets, new apartment and office buildings, and foreign cars that have become commonplace not just in Moscow and St. Petersburg but in provincial cities. Average income has doubled under Putin, and the number of people living below the poverty line has been cut in half.

But many economists have called petroleum reserves a bane, saying they enable oil-rich countries to avoid taking steps that would diversify their economies and spread wealth more equally. Russia, for example, has rising inflation, soaring imports and a lack of new investment in the very industry that is fueling the boom.

Nigeria

The problems are worse in Nigeria, which is battling an insurgency that has curtailed output in the oil-rich Niger River Delta. The central government has been disbursing its remaining oil revenue, though corruption has undermined the programme’s effectiveness. The government has also cut domestic gas subsidies, raising prices several times over in the name of improving health, education and infrastructure.

“Our oil wealth is a curse rather than a blessing for our country,” said Halima Dahiru, a 36-year-old housewife, as she waited for a bus near a Texaco station in Kano, the commercial capital of northern Nigeria. Billows of dust enveloped the gas station as vehicles frenetically cruised along the laterite-covered road, adding to the harmattan haze that blankets the city.

“You go to bed and wake up the next morning to hear the government has increased the price of petrol, and you have to live with it,” she said. “The only sensible thing to do is to adjust to the new reality because nothing will make the government listen to public outcry.”

Sudan and Chad

Newly oil-exporting countries such as Sudan and Chad and the companies operating there — including Malaysia’s Petronas and France’s Total — are winners. Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, is booming, with new skyscrapers and five-star luxury hotels, despite US and European sanctions aimed at pressuring the country to halt attacks against people in the Darfur region.

Chad’s government has used some of its oil revenue to buy weapons rather than develop the country’s economy. In eastern Chad, there are hardly any gas stations; people buy their gas — often for motorcycles, not cars — from roadside stands that sell it out of glass bottles. Oil-importing countries face their own challenges. The hardest hit are the poorest. Last year, Senegal’s budget deficit doubled, inflation quickened and growth slowed. The cash-strapped state-owned petrochemical business had to shut down for long periods.

China

In China, the government increased domestic pump prices on October 31 by nearly 10 per cent amid shortages, rationing and long lines throughout the country. Violence broke out at some gas stations, including an incident last week in Henan province in which one man killed another who had chastised him for jumping to the front of the line.

A scarcity of diesel fuel even hit China’s richest cities — Beijing, Shanghai and trading ports on the east coast — which in the past have been kept well supplied. In Ningbo, a city south of Shanghai, the wait at some gas stations this week was more than three hours long, and lines stretched more than 200 yards.

Rumours circulated that gas stations or the government was hoarding fuel in anticipation of further price increases, prompting the official New China News Agency to warn that anyone caught spreading rumours about fuel-price increases will be “severely punished.”

Li Leijun, 37, a taxi driver, said he was so angry that he was unable to purchase fuel that he argued with gas station attendants and called the police. “I still didn’t get any diesel,” he said. Since shedding orthodox Maoist economic policies, China’s leaders have unleashed decades of pent-up demand. China now consumes 9 per cent of world oil output, up from 6.4 per cent five years ago, according to the International Energy Agency. Yet it still subsidises fuel. As a result, consumption this decade has skyrocketed at an 8.7 per cent annual rate despite soaring prices and concerns about the environmental impact of profligate fuel use.

Consumption in South Africa is also defying high prices as long-impoverished blacks join the middle and upper classes. Cars are a status symbol, and petrol consumption jumped 39 per cent in the decade after the end of apartheid in 1994. New-vehicle sales last year rose 15.7 per cent over 2005.

Japan

Highly developed consumer nations have been better able to adapt. In Japan, which relies on imports for nearly 100 per cent of its fuel, nearly everyone is a loser — with the big exception of Toyota. Yet Japan has been weaning itself off oil for years. It now imports 16 per cent less oil than it did in 1973, though the economy has more than doubled. Billions of dollars were invested to convert oil-reliant electricity-generation systems into ones powered by natural gas, coal, nuclear energy or alternative fuels. Japan now accounts for 48 per cent of the globe’s solar-power generation — compared with 15 per cent in the United States. The adoption rate for fluorescent light bulbs is 80 per cent, compared with 6 per cent in the United States.

Still, rising fuel prices are pushing up the prices of raw and industrial materials, as well as for food, which relies on fertilisers and transportation. Because of rising wheat prices, Nissin Food Products, the instant-noodle industry leader, will increase prices 7 to 11 per cent in January, the first price hike in 17 years.

A winner is Toyota. Soaring petrol prices have buffed the image of the hybrid Prius and its other fuel-efficient models, such as the Camry and Corolla. Although stagnant in Japan, sales were strong in North America, Europe, Asia and emerging markets. In October, Prius sales stood at 13,158 vehicles, up 51 per cent from 8,733 in October last year. Worldwide, the number of hybrid cars sold by Toyota surpassed 1 million in May.

Britain

Britain’s national average petrol price topped £1 per litre, or about $8 a gallon, for the first time this week because of record oil prices. “But there is very little publicity about it — you don’t see many headlines saying, ‘Oil at all-time record high’,” said Chris Skrebowski, editor of Petroleum Review, a published by the Energy Institute in London. “It’s different from the United States. Here, everyone has just accepted that it is expensive.”

While British drivers are feeling the pinch, the government is gaining revenue, Skrebowski said, because about 80 per cent of the cost of gas is tax. Because Britain produces almost all the oil it consumes, its economy has been cushioned against increasing oil prices, Skrebowski said.

But Britain’s North Sea oil production is dwindling, having peaked in 1999 at 2.6 million barrels per day. Today, production is 1.4 million to 1.6 million barrels per day, Skrebowski said, while domestic oil consumption is about 1.7 million barrels a day. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who took office in June, has made energy independence a top priority.

Meanwhile, analysts said, Europeans buying oil priced in dollars are finding the rising prices somewhat cushioned by the strength of their currency. The value of the dollar has been sliding to record lows against the euro and the British pound.

Latin America

Argentina has tried to keep fuel prices for consumers at artificially low levels. President Nestor Kirchner in recent years has leaned heavily on energy companies to keep prices down, going so far as to call for a public boycott of Royal Dutch Shell when the company raised pump prices.

Now individual suppliers — wary of attracting the ire of the government — have adopted a policy of raising prices gradually and by small amounts.

As the market pressures have mounted, Kirchner has signed a series of agreements with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. This year, the two created a project called Petrosuramerica, a joint venture designed to promote cooperative energy projects and provide energy security to Argentina.

In Brazil, the region’s largest economy, high oil prices have had a different political effect. Last year, the country became a net oil exporter, thanks to major increases in domestic oil exploration and the country’s broad use of sugar-based ethanol as a transport fuel.

But new oil wealth can trickle away even more easily than it comes. Last month, Standard & Poor’s downgraded Kazakhstan’s credit rating after the country’s banks lost billions on purchases of subprime mortgages.

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Africa: all hail the Corporatocracy - see what's befallen NIGERIA

Agonies of oil communities
Thursday, Nov 15, 2007

Emma Brown, 83, is a nationalist and women’s rights activist.

As a practising journalist up to the 1970s, she had had to fight for the rights of others, never relenting.

But now the Amazon agonises as endowed communities writhe in pain for bearing petroleum which has sustained the national economy for decades.

The oil-rich communities have tales of woe to tell — devastated farmlands, polluted rivers and creeks as well as radiation occasioned by unending gas flaring.

‘’If I were younger, I would have done more; I would be in the front row in the battle to redress the situation, but at more than 80, I am no longer as strong as I used to be.

‘’Mobil started in my father’s house at 48 Liverpool St., Ikot Ebok, Eket, Akwa Ibom, but go there today, the streets adjacent to the house are not even tarred.

“‘It is very disheartening to compare our environment before oil was discovered,” the rights activist agonises.

“We are better of without oil; our economy was based on palm produce

and agricultural activities, our shoreline was lovely for recreation in those days but we have lost all that to oil.’’

Those are the lamentations and regrets of Brown on the risks and hazards of oil exploration activities in her community, Eket.

Nigeria is the world’s sixth largest producer after crude oil was discovered in 1956 by Shell Petroleum and production began in 1958 from the company’s oil field in Oloibiri, Bayelsa.

Figures from the Vienna-based Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) show that Nigeria accounts for 8.2% of the world’s oil output.

The country pumps a daily average of 2.5 million barrels of crude oil to the international market.

Oil sector analysts say government’s current development strategies aimed at increasing production to four million barrels per day by the year 2010 are feasible.

This optimism is anchored on the proven oil reserves underneath the shoreline and offshore.

Though claims of hydrocarbon reserves in Nigeria may vary, OPEC and the Energy Information Administration of the U.S. put the figure at 36.22 billion barrels.

Ntekim Edoho, an oil services operator at Mobil’s Ibeno oil fields, Qua Iboe Terminal, explains that oil reserves are proportionate to the level and technology of prospecting activities.

With more prospecting, additional oil deposits are likely to be found beacuse of the advancement in prospecting technologies.

However, petroleum, which supplies the bulk of the country’s s foreign exchange earnings, has brought with it problems and challenges due to its impact on the environment.

For instance, visits to oil producing communities in the Niger Delta show gross under-development in contrast to claims of corporate social responsibility by the oil companies.

From the creeks in Warri in Delta State, Onne in Rivers to Ibeno in Eket and Oloibiri, the story is not different.

Oil spills are a regular occurrence in these oil fields and the communities complain that even when reports are made, the oil prospecting firms and regulatory agencies respond late.

An oil well in Ikot Ada Udo, Ikot Abasi Local Government Area, Akwa Ibom, belonging to an oil company burst months ago wreaking havoc as gas and crude oil under high pressure gushed out.

The community blamed the company for responding late to the spill.

Chief Emmanuel Akpan, head of the Ikot Ada Udo community, recalls that sources of drinking water and aquatic life were polluted, while the residents fled the area for fear of inhaling gas.

“Of what use will compensation be when people have died due to problems caused by oil spills?

‘’The oil companies are very insensitive to the plight of the community.

‘’We have been crying out for more than three months and nothing has happened at the oil spill site while we continue to live with the hazard.

“This particular oil well has been giving us trouble from 2003 till date; the well has spilled oil for more than five times, which suggests that the repair works were not properly carried out,” Akpan says.

The health, safety and environmental risks of oil exploration activities are real and visible across the landscape and shoreline in the Niger Delta region.

Oil spills, gas flares and the discharge of effluent occur daily with adverse effects on the people and the environment.

The culture of silence in the oil industry, however, played itself out when an oil company’s officials declined to react to claims of neglect, devastated farmlands, polluted streams and delayed response to spills.

To address the problem of neglect in the oil bearing communities, the government, on its part, established Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

The funding pattern and administration of the commission may, however, have slowed down the programmes of the commission.

But the severity of the situation in the Niger Delta has compelled the government to fast-rack the region’s development with the adoption of a master plan.

Though oil firms may have contributed largely to the environmental problems in the Niger Delta, the concerned state governments have not helped matters.

Observers say the state governments have nothing to show for the billions of naira accruing to them monthly from the federation account.

Former President Obasanjo, who shares this sentiment, challenged the governors of the region at a forum on the Niger Delta earlier in the year to justify their oil revenue receipts.

On prudent management of oil revenue, Chief Michael Ime, a community leader in Eket, challenges the leaders to invest oil revenue to guarantee regular income for upcoming generations.

This, he says, might be the solution to youth restiveness.

For Sen. Emme Ekaette, Eket Senatorial District, Akwa Ibom, ‘’it is an irony that we are so underdeveloped despite our endowment with natural and human resources.”

Must the communities continue to suffer low school enrolment, high prevalence of HIV due to influx of migrant oil workers, youth restiveness and insecurity?

Added to these are the lack of health care facilities, environmental problems, frequent kidnappings and disruption of oil-related activities resulting in reduced earnings from oil.

Observers have harped on the need to address these challenges in a holistic manner, bringing together all the stakeholders in the oil industry.

The recent release by the federal government of its counterpart funding of the programmes of the NDDC is, therefore, a welcome development.

As the resolution of the Niger Delta crisis is on the seven-point agenda of President Umaru Yar’adua, convening a forum of all ethnic nationalities in the region to discuss these problems is a way out.

Nigeria’s crude streams, Bonny Light and Forcados, are most preferred in the international market because of their low sulphur content.

But disruptions in the oil flow, largely due to youth restiveness in the Niger Delta, have negatively affected oil revenue targets.

Stakeholders believe that it is only by wiping off the tears of the oil bearing communities that the oil companies can resume full-scale oil production and thus shore up the economy.

It is vital for the political, business and community leadership to find an acceptable solution to the problems associated with oil exploration activities in the region.

This three-sided partnership may be the required catalyst needed to take Nigeria’s oil and gas sector to the next level.