Reported by: Oahimire Omone Precious | Edited by: Oravbiere Osayomore Promise.
The Nigerian arm of Shell kept a major oil pipeline running through the Niger Delta for years despite multiple internal warnings that the infrastructure was leaking, vulnerable to sabotage and causing widespread environmental damage, a trove of internal documents obtained by the BBC has revealed. The files, which include emails, internal memos and confidential presentations, were disclosed during an ongoing class‑action lawsuit in the English High Court brought by the Bille and Ogale communities of Rivers State. They show that Shell was fully aware that the Nembe Creek Trunk Line (NCTL) – a 96.5‑kilometre artery that once carried up to 150,000 barrels of crude a day – was in a critical state as early as 2012, yet the oil kept flowing.
The documents reveal that in 2012, sections of the NCTL were marked “red” under Shell’s own technical safety rules – a status that, according to the company’s operating standards, required either an immediate shutdown or urgent remedial action. Dozens of illegal bunkering connections had turned the line into a sieve, and leaks were commonplace. Instead of halting production, executives opted to keep the pipeline working, arguing in internal communications that shutting it down would only push crude thieves to other parts of the network. A technical presentation prepared for senior management noted that around 100 illegal refineries were operating near the pipeline, that at least 90 square kilometres of land and water had already been contaminated, and that response teams were actively engaged at 60 illegal tapping points. Despite this catalogue of damage, the pipeline was given only brief, token repairs before being restarted.
The paper trail stretches back much further. In October 2008, Markus Droll, then Shell’s technical vice‑president, sent an urgent email questioning the safety of keeping the NCTL online. He warned that another major explosive attack on the infrastructure could force a complete shutdown and expressed unease that funding for essential repairs was being blocked. “I don’t agree that funding can be an issue,” he wrote. “Sorry if I sound like a broken record on this – but the approach makes me – as your Technical VP – pretty uncomfortable.” Droll’s concerns were met with a sharp rebuke from his superior, Ann Pickard, Shell’s executive vice‑president for sub‑Saharan Africa at the time. Instead of addressing the technical merits of his warning, Pickard chided him for not marking his email as “legally privileged”, cautioning that his frank assessments could expose the company to legal liability. She nevertheless acknowledged that the decision to continue pumping was difficult, arguing that, on balance, keeping the pipeline operating was the “lower risk” option. In one email she wrote: “I have decided at this time, the lower risk to both people and environment, is to try and keep operating in the mode that is described.”
The internal documents also detail a secret initiative codenamed “Project Madrid”, through which Shell’s senior leadership devised strategies to maintain oil production amid rampant crude theft. Minutes of the project meetings recorded that the company had established conditions under which its Nigerian subsidiary, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), could keep pumping despite extensive environmental damage. A separate internal presentation went even further. It warned that by continuing to operate under such conditions, Shell was leaving itself vulnerable to accusations that it was “knowingly polluting” the environment. The same presentation also outlined a parallel public‑relations strategy designed to shift public attention away from Shell’s own maintenance failures and onto the problem of oil theft.
Campaigners and lawyers representing the Niger Delta communities have seized upon the BBC report. Olanrewaju Suraju, chairman of the Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA), said the documents validated what local residents have been saying for decades. “Shell knowingly misled communities and courts while the Niger Delta was left to suffer. They knew environmental damage would occur, and they chose to keep polluting.” Sherelee Odayar, oil and gas campaigner for Greenpeace Africa, was equally scathing. “Shell saw the danger in its own files and chose profit over people. Its engineers raised the alarm. Its own standards demanded a shutdown. Its executives kept the oil flowing and worried about legal privilege while the rivers of the Niger Delta turned to poison.” The communities bringing the case are seeking a total of $1 billion – $250 million in compensation and $750 million for environmental remediation. The lawsuit focuses on more than 100 oil spills that occurred between 2011 and 2013, but the newly disclosed documents suggest that the underlying risks were known years before those events.
In a statement to the BBC, a Shell spokesperson defended the company’s record, arguing that the internal files do not fully capture the challenge of operating in an environment rife with “organised criminal activity”. Shell has long argued that the majority of oil pollution in the Niger Delta is caused by illegal tapping, sabotage and theft, not by the company’s own operational failures. Yet the United Nations Environment Programme has estimated that at least 13 million barrels of crude oil have been spilled in more than 7,000 incidents since Shell shipped its first barrel of Nigerian oil in 1958. For the fishing communities of Bille and Ogale, whose mangroves have been choked by slicks and whose children play in water stained with hydrocarbons, those numbers are not statistics – they are a lived reality. The case in the English High Court continues. For the people of the creeks and the islands, it is a long‑overdue chance to make the company that once put “red” warnings into its own files finally answer for the colour of their rivers.
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