When Shell sold its onshore oil operations in Nigeria to the Renaissance Africa Energy Company last year, the divestment transformed the fossil fuel giant’s climate performance – helping it become the first energy major to report zero routine flaring.

One year on, gas flaring at some of these assets has increased significantly, while Shell has continued to benefit commercially from them, according to a new investigation by nonprofit group Data Desk, shared exclusively with Climate Home News.

Since March 2025, Shell has traded 8 million barrels of oil from the Niger Delta’s Forcados terminal, which was included in the Renaissance deal, Data Desk’s analysis of information supplied by commodities data firm Kpler found.

It is a similar picture at the Bonny terminal, where Shell’s operations were also transferred as part of its onshore exit. Shell is recorded as having traded 3 million barrels of oil from this facility, south of the city of Port Harcourt, since the deal went through.

Multimillion-dollar oil shipments

Using an average 2025 global Brent crude price of $69 per barrel, 11 million barrels of oil shipped from the two terminals since the completion of Shell’s divestment would be worth $759 million.

Shell chartered the tankers carrying the oil to buyers around the world – from Ivory Coast and South Africa, to Canada and Italy, the Kpler data shows.

“Whoever is running Shell’s old oilfields in Nigeria needs to get that oil to market,” said Neil Atkinson, former head of the Oil Industry and Markets Division at the International Energy Agency (IEA).

“So it may well be that while Shell no longer runs a facility, the firm that took it over may have an arrangement to continue selling oil through Shell, thereby making use of their connections and trade networks,” Atkinson said.

Shell’s shipping and chartering arm made a profit of £24.8 million (about $33 million) in 2024, the most recent date available, up from £17 million the year before.

Asked about Shell’s continuing ties to the two terminals, a Shell spokesperson said: “We don’t comment on trading activities or specific customer relationships.”

Renaissance did not address a question from Climate Home News about its ongoing commercial ties with Shell.

Environmental legacy

The new reporting raises fresh questions about how energy majors present their climate performance to investors and consumers, and the environmental legacy they are leaving behind after selling fossil fuel assets in countries such as Nigeria, where Shell has operated for nearly a century.

Many of Shell’s onshore oil fields had been in production for decades by the time the company sold its Nigerian onshore subsidiary over a year ago for $2.4 billion to Renaissance, a consortium of Nigerian companies and an international firm that aims to double oil production by 2030.

Six months after finalising the deal, Renaissance CEO Tony Attah said the company had already boosted output at Shell’s former fields by 100,000 barrels per day.

At the same time, gas flaring increased at most of the fields where the activity was detected, according to Data Desk’s analysis of satellite data, despite Renaissance’s pledges to foster sustainable energy development and protect local communities.

Gas is a by-product of oil drilling. In places that lack infrastructure to process this gas, like the Niger Delta, it gets burned off instead.

Earlier this year, Climate Home News reported on the impact on local communities of increased gas flaring at several other fields in the Niger Delta since they were sold by Shell to different Nigerian companies in recent years.

Besides billowing out toxic chemicals that cause air pollution and wasting a potential energy source, global gas flaring is estimated by the World Bank to release the equivalent of 400 million tonnes of CO2 annually – higher than France’s greenhouse gas emissions each year.

Gas flaring renaissance?

Comparing the year before the sale’s completion to the year after, satellite data shows daily flaring rose at 10 of the 13 Renaissance blocks where it was detected. Flaring fell at two blocks and was unchanged at one other, while five had no detectable flaring in the dataset.

The OML 32 block, located in the heart of the Niger Delta, was one of the assets that Renaissance took over last year. Here, average daily flaring was more than 20 times higher in the year ending March 2026 compared to the year before, according to Data Desk’s analysis of satellite data from the Colorado School of Mines’ Earth Observation Group.

The Renaissance-operated OML 21 and OML 28 onshore blocks saw increases of 390% and 93%, respectively, in average daily flaring in the year after the sale’s completion.

A spokesperson for Renaissance said the company’s environmental management framework included a plan to reduce flaring.

“Renaissance Africa Energy Company Limited has a multi-year gas flaring reduction strategy through its Flare Elimination and Monetisation Plan, developed in accordance with applicable laws and regulations,” the spokesperson said.

Shell’s spokesperson said it “cannot comment on operational matters relating to assets under new owners/operators”, adding that both the company and the Nigerian government had conducted “extensive due diligence” with regard to its divestments in Nigeria.

“Dodging accountability”

Before the deal, Shell said three years ago that its remaining Nigerian assets accounted for about half of the total routine and non-routine flaring in its integrated gas and upstream facilities. Shortly after selling these assets, the company announced it had achieved zero routine flaring – five years ahead of a global 2030 target set by the World Bank.

Shell’s exit from onshore operations in Nigeria followed years of accusations of environmental harm, including oil spills. Residents of two Nigerian communities are currently taking legal action against the oil major in the UK and a trial at the High Court is due to begin next year.

Shell says the majority of spills in the Niger Delta were caused by theft and sabotage and it is therefore not liable.

According to Atkinson, Shell pivoted away from onshore oil fields that “might have become more trouble than they were worth” while remaining a major player in Nigeria’s oil industry.

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The London-based company has invested billions in offshore gas development in the country. It has also retained a 25.6% stake in Nigeria LNG Limited (NLNG), a liquefied natural gas producer based on Bonny Island.

As the world’s biggest fossil fuel companies seek to meet their climate targets, a strategic shift “to dodge accountability” by selling more problematic assets is under way, said Sophie Marjanac, director of legal strategy at the Polluter Pays Project, an organisation that campaigns for the oil industry to cover the cost of its environmental damage.

“By dumping ageing, polluting infrastructure onto smaller operators, they leave behind contamination, and communities facing ongoing harm with little chance of justice,” Marjanac said.

The post How Shell is still benefiting from offloaded Niger Delta oil assets appeared first on Climate Home News.

How Shell is still benefiting from offloaded Niger Delta oil assets

Joie Chowdhury is senior attorney and climate justice and accountability manager at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) and Jule Schnakenberg is director of World’s Youth for Climate Justice (WYCJ).

A resolution that will come before the UN General Assembly (UNGA) later this month brings a reckoning for multilateralism: will governments stand behind international law or not?

On May 20, UN member states will consider a resolution to welcome and operationalise the International Court of Justice’s historic Advisory Opinion (ICJ AO) on states’ obligations in respect of climate change, which clarified that they have binding legal duties to prevent and repair climate harm.

Translating that clarity into action should be straightforward. That the resolution is instead contested exposes efforts to evade responsibility. Those most responsible for the crisis will often be the first to resist accountability – that’s predictable, but it’s not acceptable.

At a time when multilateral cooperation is under strain, the resolution’s backing by a strong majority of countries, or its passing by consensus, holds power. It would send a clear signal: governments remain committed to the rule of law and to collective action to protect the climate, a shared foundation on which all life depends.

State of play

Led by Vanuatu, with support from a core group of diverse countries including the Netherlands, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Barbados, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, Jamaica, the Philippines and Burkina Faso, the resolution, now open for co-sponsorship, has already secured broad cross-regional backing – especially from countries at the sharp edge of climate change.

The final text of the draft resolution faithfully reflects the full breadth of legal obligations articulated in the advisory opinion. It affirms the imperative of a just transition away from fossil fuels, the stability of legal entitlements for countries facing sea-level rise, and the duty to provide full reparation for climate-related harm under international law. It also underscores the centrality of equity and provides for structured follow-up for implementation, including a report on ways to do that from the UN Secretary-General.

While the final resolution text could have gone further on critical justice dimensions, it reflects a carefully balanced outcome, integrating diverse perspectives emerging from the genuine engagement of over a hundred states.

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In negotiations, resistance tracked a familiar set of arguments to protect fossil fuel interests and evade accountability. Many of the usual suspects – polluters with disproportionately high historical and current responsibility for the climate crisis, including major oil producers – have engaged actively, but with the aim of weakening the authority of the Court’s opinion, or references to fossil fuels in the resolution.

There is still time for things to shift. For the incoming COP presidencies of Australia, Türkiye and Ethiopia, and European states that profess their climate leadership, positioning on this resolution is a litmus test of their commitment to ensuring that climate action accords with the law.

Closing the accountability gap

Claims from countries with a disproportionate share of emissions that the resolution duplicates existing processes, particularly under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), miss the point. The climate treaty regime has yet to deliver accountability. It has not delivered on ambition, nor on the imperative to phase out fossil fuels, and certainly not on tackling loss and damage. The draft resolution text explicitly seeks to ensure coordination, coherence and complementarity with existing processes, while closing the accountability gap.

Assertions that the resolution “reinterprets” or “goes beyond” the advisory opinion similarly ring hollow. This is standard UN practice: General Assembly resolutions give effect to legal norms clarified by the Court. The text does not create new law; it reflects existing obligations in the Court’s own terms.

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It is also important to be clear: the advisory opinion itself stands as the most authoritative clarification of international law on climate change. Its weight or persuasiveness does not depend on this resolution. Since its delivery, it has been taken up by courts and policymakers worldwide. What is at stake is not whether states will act, but whether they will do so in good faith or under mounting pressure.

Consensus carries weight

The advisory opinion carries exceptional legitimacy: requested through a resolution adopted by consensus, following legal proceedings with record participation, and delivered unanimously. Against this backdrop, there is no credible basis for opposing a resolution that seeks to welcome and advance the AO.

Consensus would send a powerful message of states’ commitment to climate action and the rule of law, but the resolution does not require unanimity to pass. As precedents show, including the Ghana-led General Assembly resolution recognising the transatlantic slave trade as a crime against humanity, global majority support can carry decisive weight, even in the face of resistance from powerful states.

From the outset, the ICJ advisory opinion process has been driven and deeply shaped by youth leadership, and responding to their call now requires completing the task the General Assembly set for itself in 2023 by requesting an advisory opinion from the ICJ.

A vote for climate justice

In a powerful poem, Pacific environmental advocate Dylan Kava writes:

“….They call it negotiation.
We know it as survival.
While they draft options
our coastlines disappear…”

The survival and dignity of people facing escalating climate harm is not a matter of political convenience. It is a matter of existing law; a matter of political responsibility, moral courage and actual leadership.

We urge all member states to support the resolution as presented on May 20, with a view to adoption by consensus. History will not judge those in power by how forcefully they defended the status quo, but by whether they rose to meet a crisis that threatens us all.

The post ICJ follow-up resolution is a test of climate leadership at the UN appeared first on Climate Home News.

ICJ follow-up resolution is a test of climate leadership at the UN

As global oil prices rocket due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, traditional jet fuel has become hard to come by and has nearly doubled in price, leading airlines across much of the world to raise ticket prices or cancel flights.

While greener fuels produced from plants or green hydrogen remain more expensive, the cost gap has narrowed and experts told Climate Home News that this could boost demand in the struggling sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) industry.

Matt Ridley, sustainability and innovation director at the OneWorld airline alliance told Climate Home News that “higher jet fuel prices narrow the green premium, reinforcing the role of SAF in cutting lifecycle emissions while reducing exposure to volatile fossil fuel markets.”

Marie Owens Thomsen, chief economist and sustainability lead at the International Air Transport Association (IATA), a trade group for airlines, said the world is currently seeing “the highest jet fuel prices that we’ve ever had in the history of jet travel”.

The problem predates the war but has been worsened by it, she said, adding that as demand for oil-based products like diesel has declined because of the electrification of road transport, many of the oil refineries that produce jet fuel were struggling to make a profit.

The crisis could “wake people up” to the problem of depending on “oil monopolies in the Middle East”, she said, adding that ramping up SAF production is critical for energy security.

“Khaki is the new green”

Some in the military sector seem to be taking note. Rheinmetall, a long-term supplier of the German air force, has partnered with a company called Ineratec which is developing technology to produce e-SAF based on hydrogen. And during the Biden administration, the US Department of Defense invested $65 million in an American e-SAF startup called Air Company.

Summing up the changing reasons for interest in SAF, Marcella Franchi from SAF producer Haffner Energy told the SAF Investor Summit in February that “khaki is the new green”. Speaking before the US bombed Iran, she gave the example of Canada, which she said is pursuing SAF production to avoid reliance on oil-based jet fuel from its “very unsettling neighbours”.

Since conflict has flared in the Middle East, Susan van Dyk, a former academic turned SAF consultant, told Climate Home News that a temporary narrowing of the cost gap is not, by itself, enough to make SAF take off. But the energy crisis may push governments to support SAF, she said.

The European Union and the UK have both mandated that, from January 2025, fuel suppliers at their airports must blend at least 2% SAF with oil-based kerosene. The blending requirement will gradually increase to reach 32% in the EU and 22% in the UK by 2040.

But, at least before the latest oil crisis, the EU and UK faced pressure from some airline and fossil fuel executives to water down these rules. The uncertainty these calls have created is damaging investment in production, SAF producers have said.

Book and claim

Speaking at the SAF Investor Conference in February, African airline executives and SAF producers said the design of the EU and UK mandates hinders non-European producers from contributing.

Under current rules, the SAF has to be physically delivered to planes at EU and UK airports to count towards the mandate, which favours SAF produced in or close to European airports – even though the raw materials to make it, such as waste oil, are often imported from regions like Southeast Asia.

Wakina Mutembei, Kenya Airways’ sustainability and innovations lead, told the conference that the EU and UK should adopt what is known as a book-and-claim system, where SAF supplied to planes outside of Europe can count towards a fuel supplier’s compliance with the EU and UK’s mandates.

This would be a “business opportunity”, she told the London audience, to use abundant Kenyan crops and used cooking oil and lower production costs “to produce SAF that is cheaper for the European market and the UK market”.

“If we are all complaining that the cost of SAF is higher, why not go to a market where it’s cheaper to produce it?” she asked, noting that this would create jobs in Africa and earn foreign currency.

Francis Mwangi, senior engineer at Kenya’s Civil Aviation Authority, told Climate Home News in an interview that if SAF is produced in Africa “you might find that, even relatively, the price might not be as far from the normal Jet A1 [oil-based jet fuel]”.

IATA’s Thomsen also called for a book-and-claim system, saying it “is definitely a way of making this teeny-tiny, bespoke, private-deal kind of market grow into a global market” by removing geographical constraints.

Shipping SAF long distances to be pumped into planes is inefficient, she said, adding that “without book and claim, this market will not scale”.

The post Oil crisis could boost struggling sustainable aviation fuel industry appeared first on Climate Home News.

Oil crisis could boost struggling sustainable aviation fuel industry