Shell Stays in Nigeria

Shell has no plans to pull out from Nigeria, Dutch paper Financial Dagblad reported Wednesday.

"Shell has been operating for 70 years in Nigeria," said Shell Chief Executive Jeroen van der Veer after Tuesday's annual general meeting of shareholders in Scheveningen, the Netherlands.

Despite the fact that the Nigerian government skims-off 95 percent of the profits for the oil production on land, Shell wants to greatly expand production, including oil production at sea, he said.

"The world simply needs the energy from Nigeria," said van der Veer.

Former Dutch prime minister Wim Kok visited Nigeria at the end of March as a member of the supervisory board of Shell to review the impact of the unrest there on oil production.

"I was deeply affected by what I saw there," Kok told Shell's shareholders. Shell is the largest foreign oil producer in Nigeria.

In recent years, armed gangs have carried out attacks on oil installations, kidnapped oil industry employees and regularly sabotaged pipelines to tap oil.