TheCable

Royal Dutch Shell Plc, a multinational petroleum oil and gas giant, says it made direct social investments of $40 million in Nigeria in 2019.

In a statement, the company said the investments were carried out through its Nigerian arms which include Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company Limited (SNEPCo), and Shell Nigeria Gas Ltd (SGN).

The investments, the company said, spanned areas including provision of access to affordable healthcare, supporting education, enterprise support, accelerating access to energy as well as assistance and safety.

The company added that the development makes Nigeria the “the largest concentration of social investment spending in the Shell Group.”

On healthcare, Shell said it supported 20 healthcare centres and signature intervention projects across the country through SPDC JV and SNEPCo.

It said such interventions include Health-In-Motion (HIM) community care programme, Community Health Insurance Scheme (CHIS) in Rivers state and Oloibiri Health Programme (OHP) in Bayelsa respectively.

“HIM services benefitted 27,490 individuals in Imo, Bayelsa, Delta, Rivers and Ogun States,” adding that since its launch in 2010, more than 667,000 people have benefitted from the programme,” the company said in a statement.

On education, the company said its SPDC JV and SNEPCo invested $7.8 million on scholarships in 2019.

It added that some of its other investments in education include Cradle-to-Career (c2c) scholarships in the Niger Delta, supporting research institutions, Industrial Work Experience (SIWE) programme and invests in specific initiatives at Nigerian universities.

It said over 75 students also graduated from its Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Geosciences and Petroleum Engineering programmes out of which more than 81% of them were employed in 2019.

Similarly, the company said it has continued to support entrepreneurial development in Nigeria through its several initiatives such as LiveWIRE youth enterprise development programme in Ogoniland.

“In 2019, 140 people benefitted from the LiveWIRE programme, receiving training in enterprise development and management, as well as business start-up grants. More than 7,000 Nigerian youths have so far been trained under the programme and almost 4,000 young entrepreneurs were provided with business grants,” it said.

On assistance and safety, Shell said: “By the end of 2019, the SPDC JV and SNEPCo completed the distribution of food, essential hygiene kits andvother relief items to over 5,500 vulnerable households in IDP camps and impacted communities. SPDC also commenced project work on school reconstruction, and teacher training, upgrading of a Primary Health Care Centre and water and toilet facilities in Yobe State.”