TotalEnergies logos are seen in a gas station in Nice, France, October 10, 2022. Image@ REUTERS/Eric Gaillard/File Photo
A coalition of environmental groups has taken TotalEnergies to a civil court in France, seeking documents detailing the environmental cleanup plans linked to a Nigerian oil asset the company is trying to sell. Friends of the Earth France is among the organisations behind Wednesday’s filing, which relies on France’s 2017 corporate duty of vigilance law. The legislation requires French companies to prevent environmental and human rights harm linked to their operations.
The vigilance law has been used against TotalEnergies before. A separate case over the East African Crude Oil Pipeline in Uganda and Tanzania was dismissed on procedural grounds after a French court ruled the plaintiffs’ submissions differed significantly from earlier filings, a finding campaigners disputed. The law has also been used to challenge other major French companies, including Casino, Suez and BNP Paribas.
At the heart of the latest dispute is TotalEnergies’ 10% non-operated stake in the onshore Nigerian joint venture formerly known as SPDC, now called Renaissance. Its network includes about 4,000 kilometres of pipelines and flowlines. TotalEnergies agreed in January to sell the stake to local company Vaaris, but the deal still requires approval from Nigerian regulators.
The agreement came after an earlier attempt to sell the same stake to Mauritius-based Chappal Energies collapsed last year when Nigerian regulators concluded the company could not finance the roughly $860 million purchase. Eni, which owns a 5% stake in the venture, is also looking to exit.
The environmental groups want access to the environmental management plans included in the sale agreement. If those plans fall short of TotalEnergies’ obligations under France’s vigilance law, they say they will file a second lawsuit to force the company to carry out remediation work. TotalEnergies, Vaaris and Nigeria’s Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission did not respond to requests for comment.
The asset has long been a source of problems. Years of pipeline vandalism, oil theft and operational failures have led to expensive repairs and legal disputes, eventually prompting Shell to leave the venture. Last year, Shell sold its 30% stake to a largely Nigerian consortium for about $2.4 billion. The company reportedly provided loans to Renaissance Africa Energy Company to help complete the purchase. The Nigerian National Petroleum Company owns the remaining 55%, leaving TotalEnergies, Eni and Renaissance Africa Energy with a combined 45% stake.
TotalEnergies chief executive Patrick Pouyanné defended the sale at the company’s May 29 shareholder meeting, saying the decision was driven by widespread oil theft rather than an attempt to avoid responsibility.
“There is a national sport of sorts involving making holes in these pipes to take the oil and load it onto tankers. It’s like the Wild West.”
Pouyanné said sabotage had declined since Shell’s exit and production had increased. He acknowledged TotalEnergies remained responsible for pollution incidents that occurred during its ownership but argued liability for future spills would pass to Vaaris.
“Given the increased production that has occurred with the departure of international companies, I think they’ll have the money to finance cleanup. And above all, there will be less sabotage, so pollution will go down.”
Before approving the transaction, Nigeria’s oil regulator must determine whether Vaaris has the technical expertise and financial capacity to operate the asset responsibly, including meeting environmental obligations. The NGOs argue recent divestments raise doubts about whether new owners have met that standard. Vaaris has already missed several deadlines to complete the acquisition, while Shell’s decision to finance part of its buyer’s purchase has also fuelled concerns about the financial strength of new entrants.
Ken Henshaw, executive director of Niger Delta-based NGO We the People and one of the claimants, said the problem extends across the region’s wave of oil asset sales.
“None of the divestments so far has involved a blueprint for environmental remediation.”
He accused Nigerian authorities of focusing on boosting production instead of ensuring environmental cleanup.
“The Nigerian government is more interested in how the successor companies will expand the assets and generate more oil for revenues rather than managing environmental issues.”
The lawsuit is the latest in a series of legal challenges facing TotalEnergies in France over its environmental and climate claims. In October 2025, a Paris court ruled that the company had engaged in misleading commercial practices by overstating its climate commitments, ordering it to remove certain net-zero claims from its consumer website. Campaigners described the decision as the first ruling of its kind against greenwashing by a major oil company.
By: Andrews Kwesi Yeboah