Analysis: Nigerian oil-region's gloomy outlook unmoved by U.N.

ABUJA (Reuters) - A landmark U.N. report on 50 years of oil pollution in Nigeria is unlikely to bring the change many had hoped for, after Shell and the national petroleum company went on the defensive and weary local communities said they had seen it all before.

The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) report focused on the Ogoniland region and is the most comprehensive, scientific analysis in any area of the vast Niger Delta wetlands, the heartland of Africa's largest energy industry.

The report offers evidence that operator Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), a coalition between state-oil firm NNPC and Shell, failed to follow best practice, leading to serious public health issues.

The report laid out a detailed road map for the world's biggest ever oil-spill clean-up, taking 30 years and cost an initial $1 billion, led by money from SPDC and the Nigerian government. The local communities are not holding their breath.

"The shelves are filled with reports ... the fact that the devastation was caused by oil exploitation is something that all of us already knew," said Ledum Mitee, president of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP).

"In our view, Shell has just been able to purchase, at huge cost and time, another four years of doing nothing, absolutely nothing, to clean the environment."

UNEP produced the report, which was paid for by Shell, at the request of the Nigerian government.

MOSOP, led by poet and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, forced Shell out of Ogoniland in 1993 after they said the oil giant had destroyed their fishing environment. Saro-Wiwa was later hanged by the military government, prompting international outrage.

Shell may not pump any oil from Ogoniland any more but its pipelines and production infrastructure still sit in the region and are subject to leaks and sabotage attacks.

In some areas pollution was at levels that needed emergency action with one community drinking water that was contaminated with benzene, a substance known to cause cancer, at levels over 900 times above the World Health Organization guidelines.

UNEP said in 10 out of 15 areas visited where SPDC said it had completed restoration, there was still serious oil-related pollution that didn't meet Shell's own best practice standards.

NNPC and Shell both said oil spills in the Niger Delta were a major problem but they always clean them up and the major reason for oil spills is thieves and saboteurs.

"WHAT'S NEW?"

Sabotage attacks and gangs bunkering oil has been a serious problem in the Niger Delta for years, although an amnesty for militants in 2009 brought a halt to major attacks.

"The report, what's new?" a spokesman for NNPC said. "There is no question of paying because we already clean up all the spills," he said in reaction to the $1 billion proposal and comments made by UNEP that spills were not cleaned up.

Despite the lack of hope felt by many of the communities in the Niger Delta, the pressure of 50 years working onshore in Nigeria is telling on Shell, as the future of crude oil exploration increasingly spreads to deep offshore projects.

Last year it sold off four onshore oil blocks and it has said it is not targeting growth in Nigeria.

The company's London-listed shares lagged rivals on Thursday after it emerged the company had accepted that a British court had jurisdiction in villager claims for compensation for damages caused by two oil spills from pipelines controlled by SPDC.

One source close to the case said the cost of cleaning up the spills and compensating those affected has been estimated by some experts at about 250 million pounds.

Rights groups want to use the U.N. report as momentum to pressure the Nigerian government and Shell to take major steps in clearing up pollution, in a similar way public reaction in the U.S. built up on BP, following the Gulf of Mexico disaster.

SPDC questions a comparison between the two situations because many Niger Delta spills are caused by pipeline sabotage.

In a region where most people live on less than $2 a day, despite decades of crude oil wealth flowing beneath their feet, there is little optimism, despite the strength of the U.N.'s findings.

"The report finally confirms what we have been saying all these years; that the entire Niger Delta region, not just Ogoni land, has been severely damaged due to oil exploitation," said Nnimmo Bassey, director of Environmental Rights Action (ERA).

"But I'm not optimistic that the multinationals and government will change their ways of operating in the country despite the fact that the report said that Shell did not meets its own required standards of operations."

(Additional reporting by Austin Ekeinde in Port Harcourt; Editing by Giles Elgood)