Shell to negotiate over Nigeria oil spill compensation Shell, which is hopeful of an agreement, claims that lawyers representing the local communities have exaggerated the number of people affected, their incomes and the period of time for which compensation is owed to create damages claims "tens of times" higher than Shell thinks is credible. Peter Rees QC, Shell's legal director, said: "We are faced with an incredibly large number of people who say that they were earning a living out of a relatively small area of waterway. We have 13,000 people who say they were making a good living out of fishing an area about the size of Lake Windermere. Initial assessments by Shell, regulators and local communities suggested 4,100 barrels of oil leaked, but Leigh Day cites independent experts who put the figure at up to 600,000 barrels. Leigh Day alleges that the first spill had been leaking for more than two months before Shell noticed it and that 1,000 hectares of mangroves were destroyed and a further 5,000 hectares affected. Shell denies the allegations. Shell says it should have been able to clean up the spills within a matter of months, but has been unable to gain access because local factions each want their own preferred contractors to get the work. "This is a part of Nigeria where security cannot be guaranteed," Mr Rees said. Without local support, "you are putting lives at risk," he said. But Mr Day dismissed Shell's argument as "absolute rubbish." He said his clients were "desperate to get this area cleaned up and to get fishing" but should be "fairly compensated for their losses from the time the spill took place until the oil is cleaned up and the Bodo Creek is returned to its natural state." The area would take "decades" to recover, he said. "The idea they are going to be [delaying access] for some nefarious reason is rubbish," he said. Shell is finding every excuse under the sun to avoid liability for the full extent of the damage done by these spills.