{"id":44527,"date":"2026-07-01T18:11:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T18:11:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/44527\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T18:11:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T18:11:17","slug":"four-groups-launch-lawsuit-over-totalenergies-oil-asset-divestment-in-nigeria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/44527\/","title":{"rendered":"Four groups launch lawsuit over TotalEnergies’ oil asset divestment in Nigeria"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MTN<\/a><\/p>\n

Four civil society organisations have filed legal action against French energy giant TotalEnergies, seeking access to documents relating to the company\u2019s planned divestment from its onshore oil interests in Nigeria\u2019s Niger Delta.<\/p>\n

The organisations, including Friends of the Earth France, Hawkmoth, HEDA Resource Centre and Social Action International, announced the lawsuit on Wednesday in a joint statement shared with PREMIUM TIMES.<\/p>\n

They said their suit asked a French court to compel TotalEnergies to disclose documents that would clarify the terms of the proposed sale of its stake in the Renaissance joint venture.<\/p>\n

The organisations, supported by The Corner House and ReCommon, stated that the legal action was brought under Article 145 of the French Code of Civil Procedure, which allows parties to seek court-ordered measures to preserve or obtain evidence before a substantive lawsuit is filed.<\/p>\n

According to the groups, the transaction has been conducted with little public disclosure, leaving unanswered questions about who will be responsible for remediating polluted sites and compensating communities affected by decades of oil exploration in the Niger Delta.<\/p>\n

\"PT<\/a><\/p>\n

They explained that the requested documents would enable them to determine whether TotalEnergies has complied with France\u2019s Duty of Vigilance Law, which requires large companies to identify and prevent serious human rights and environmental risks linked to their operations and business relationships.<\/p>\n

The legal action comes months after TotalEnergies announced that it had signed a sale and purchase agreement to divest its 10 per cent non-operating interest in the Renaissance joint venture to Nigerian consortium Vaaris.<\/a><\/p>\n

The company noted that the proposed sale covers its interest in 18 onshore oil mining licences in the Niger Delta but excludes its stakes in three gas-producing licences that supply about half of the feed gas to the Nigeria LNG project.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It also said completion of the transaction remains subject to approval by the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC).<\/p>\n

The proposed transaction followed an earlier attempt by TotalEnergies to sell the same stake to Chappal Energies<\/a>, a deal that was not completed before the company announced Vaaris as the new buyer.<\/p>\n

The organisations cited findings by the Bayelsa State Oil and Environmental Commission, which described the Niger Delta as one of the world\u2019s \u201cmost polluted places on Earth.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

They said decades of oil production have left drinking water contaminated, destroyed fisheries and rendered large areas of farmland unsuitable for cultivation.<\/p>\n

According to the commission\u2019s 2023 report, between nine million and 13 million barrels of crude oil were spilled across the Niger Delta between 1958 and 2010\u2014an amount estimated to be 35 to 50 times the volume released during the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis case is about people, not just oil assets. It is about children growing up with poisoned water, families breathing polluted air, and communities losing their health and livelihoods while international oil companies walk away with decades of profits,\u201d Isaac Osuoka, who is the Coordinator of Social Action International, stated.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThese communities must not be treated as corporate sacrifice zones. France\u2019s Duty of Vigilance Law requires Total to demonstrate that its divestment does not further infringe the human rights of people in its oil and gas extraction sites by ensuring adequate remediation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oil majors\u2019 exit raises concerns<\/p>\n

The organisations said TotalEnergies\u2019 planned divestment is part of a broader withdrawal by European oil companies from Nigeria\u2019s onshore oil sector.<\/p>\n

They recalled that in March 2025, Shell completed the sale of its Nigerian onshore subsidiary, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), to Renaissance Africa Energy. SPDC, now renamed Renaissance JV, had operated onshore oil assets that, according to the groups, contributed significantly to oil pollution in the Niger Delta over the past three decades.<\/p>\n

The statement noted that TotalEnergies, which owns a 10 per cent non-operating stake in the joint venture, signed an agreement in January 2026 to sell that interest to Vaaris, while Eni announced in May 2026 that it would also divest its stake in the onshore assets.<\/p>\n

The organisations argued that these transactions have proceeded without adequate public disclosure regarding financial guarantees for environmental remediation or compensation, raising concerns that communities may be left to bear the burden of decades of pollution after the international oil companies complete their exit.<\/p>\n

At TotalEnergies\u2019 annual general meeting in May, the company\u2019s Chief Executive Officer, Patrick Pouyann\u00e9, defended the company\u2019s decision to exit Nigeria\u2019s onshore oil business, citing persistent crude oil theft and pipeline vandalism.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He stated the company had sought to ensure that environmental liabilities associated with the assets would be transferred to the new owners in accordance with Nigerian law.<\/p>\n

However, the organisations argued that those assurances should be made public.<\/p>\n

READ ALSO:\u00a0TotalEnergies outlines growth focused, long-term strategy for Nigeria at NIES 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cTotal served on the international board of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, so it can\u2019t say it doesn\u2019t understand the public interest and its own obligation to be transparent about such transactions,\u201d Simon Taylor, a founding director of anti-corruption group, Global Witness, explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe asked Patrick Pouyann\u00e9 about the deal at this year\u2019s AGM, but all we got back were smoke-and-mirrors claims. Just what has Total got to hide?\u201d<\/p>\n

Also commenting, Olanrewaju Suraju of HEDA Resources, said United Nations working groups had described recent divestments by multinational oil companies as \u201cexperiments in divestment without clean-up.\u201d<\/p>\n

He argued that questions remain over whether the new owners have the financial capacity to assume the environmental liabilities associated with the assets, citing the financing arrangements surrounding Shell\u2019s sale and the unsuccessful attempt to conclude TotalEnergies\u2019 earlier transaction with Chappal Energies.<\/p>\n

The organisations noted that they are asking the French court to compel TotalEnergies to disclose documents relating to the proposed sale so they can assess whether the company has fulfilled its obligations under France\u2019s Duty of Vigilance Law before completing the divestment.<\/p>\n

\u201cAccess to information is essential to ensure that these companies fulfil their responsibilities and do not leave local communities to deal with the heavy legacy of the pollution they have caused,\u201d Camille Grandperrin of Friends of the Earth France, stressed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As of the time of filing this report, neither TotalEnergies, Vaaris nor the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission had issued any public statement in response to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four civil society organisations have filed legal action against French energy giant TotalEnergies, seeking access to documents relating…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44528,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12699],"tags":[30076,30077,30078,30079,30080,5726],"class_list":["post-44527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-totalenergies","tag-bayelsa-state-oil-and-environmental-commission","tag-earth-france","tag-hawkmoth","tag-heda-resource-centre-and-social-action-international","tag-renaissance-africa-energy","tag-totalenergies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}