Four Groups Sue TotalEnergies Over Oil Sale in Nigeria

Four civil society groups have taken legal action against TotalEnergies, a French energy company. They want access to documents about the company's plan to sell its oil interests in Nigeria's Niger Delta.

The groups are Friends of the Earth France, Hawkmoth, HEDA Resource Centre, and Social Action International. They announced the lawsuit on Wednesday in a statement shared with PREMIUM TIMES.

The groups want a French court to make TotalEnergies reveal documents that explain the terms of the sale of its part in the Renaissance joint venture.

These organisations, with help from The Corner House and ReCommon, say they filed the lawsuit under Article 145 of the French Code of Civil Procedure. This article allows people to ask the court for evidence before a bigger lawsuit is filed.

The groups pointed out that the sale has been mostly secretive. They have questions about who will clean up polluted areas and pay affected communities after years of oil drilling in the Niger Delta.

They believe that the documents will help them see if TotalEnergies is following France’s Duty of Vigilance Law. This law requires big companies to find and prevent serious human rights and environmental risks linked to their operations.

This legal action comes after TotalEnergies announced it signed a sale and purchase agreement to sell its 10 percent non-operating interest in the Renaissance joint venture to a Nigerian group called Vaaris.

The company said the sale involves its interests in 18 oil mining licenses in the Niger Delta. It does not include its stakes in three gas-producing licenses that provide about half of the gas for the Nigeria LNG project.

TotalEnergies said the deal still needs approval from the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC).

This proposed sale follows an earlier attempt by TotalEnergies to sell the same stake to Chappal Energies. That deal did not go through before they announced Vaaris as the buyer.

The groups mentioned a report from the Bayelsa State Oil and Environmental Commission. This report called the Niger Delta one of the world's most polluted areas.

They noted that decades of oil production have contaminated drinking water, destroyed fisheries, and made large farmlands unusable.

According to the commission’s report for 2023, between nine million and 13 million barrels of crude oil were spilled in the Niger Delta from 1958 to 2010. This amount is estimated to be 35 to 50 times more than what was spilled during the Exxon Valdez incident in Alaska.

Isaac Osuoka, Coordinator of Social Action International, said, "This 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."

He continued, "These communities must not be treated as corporate sacrifice zones. France’s Duty of Vigilance Law requires Total to show that its sale does not further harm the human rights of people in its oil and gas extraction sites by ensuring proper clean-up."

The groups also said TotalEnergies' planned sale is part of a larger trend of European oil companies leaving Nigeria’s onshore oil industry.

They reminded everyone that in March 2025, Shell sold its Nigerian onshore subsidiary, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), to Renaissance Africa Energy. SPDC, now called Renaissance JV, has operated onshore oil assets that, according to the groups, have significantly contributed to pollution in the Niger Delta for over 30 years.

The statement pointed out that TotalEnergies, which has a 10 percent non-operating stake in the joint venture, signed an agreement in January 2026 to sell that stake to Vaaris. Eni also announced in May 2026 that it would sell its stake in the onshore assets.

The groups argued that these sales have happened without enough public information about financial guarantees for cleaning up the environment or compensating communities. They are worried that communities might have to deal with the pollution after the oil companies leave.

At TotalEnergies’ annual meeting in May, CEO Patrick Pouyanné defended the decision to leave Nigeria’s onshore oil sector. He mentioned ongoing theft of crude oil and pipeline damage as reasons.

He said they have worked to ensure that environmental responsibilities tied to the assets would be transferred to the new owners according to Nigerian law.

But the groups say these assurances should be made public. Simon Taylor, a founding director of the anti-corruption group Global Witness, said, "Total served on the international board of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, so it can’t say it doesn’t understand the public interest and its own obligation to be transparent about such transactions."

He added, "We asked Patrick Pouyanné about the deal at this year’s AGM, but all we got back were smoke-and-mirrors claims. Just what has Total got to hide?"

Olanrewaju Suraju from HEDA Resources said some United Nations groups have called recent sales by multinational oil companies “experiments in divestment without clean-up.”

He questioned whether the new owners have enough money to handle the environmental issues linked to the assets. He mentioned the financial arrangements during Shell’s sale and the failed attempt to sell to Chappal Energies as examples.

The groups are asking the French court to make TotalEnergies provide documents related to the sale. They want to check if the company has followed France’s Duty of Vigilance Law before going through with the sale.

Camille Grandperrin from Friends of the Earth France said, "Access 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."

At the time of this report, neither TotalEnergies, Vaaris, nor the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission had given any public response to the lawsuit.