A report by BBC has revealed that British oil giant Shell kept pumping millions of barrels of crude through Nigeria’s Nembe Creek Trunk Line for years despite internal warnings that the pipeline was causing widespread pollution.
In the report, BBC quoted internal documents from the oil multinational.
The documents obtained by BBC, *The Octopus News* reports, include emails and presentations disclosed during ongoing UK legal proceedings.
Communities around the Niger Delta are suing Shell, arguing that the company should be liable for more than 100 oil leaks between 2011 and 2013 that damaged health, land and livelihoods.
The 60-mile (96.5km) Nembe Creek Trunk Line runs from inland oilfields to the Bonny Terminal for export. It passes near Bille, a riverine community of 45 islands in the Niger Delta, where residents say fishing grounds have been destroyed.
A senior Shell executive raised alarms as early as 2008. In an internal email exchange that October, then-Technical Vice-President Markus Droll warned against operating the pipeline outside normal guidelines while it faced massive theft and infrastructure failures.
“If there is another massive explosive attack tomorrow … then we could well find ourselves in the situation of simply having to close the production down,” Droll wrote.
He also questioned whether safeguards were adequate and said, “Funding can be an issue.”
Droll added that he was “pretty uncomfortable” with the approach. In response, Regional Executive Vice-President Ann Pickard criticised him for not marking the email “legally privileged” and said it “exposed us significantly.”
Pickard acknowledged that the decision was “not an easy decision” but argued that continuing operations posed the “lower risk to both people and environment” compared to shutting down amid militancy and theft at the time.
By 2012, at the height of the alleged spills near Bille, internal documents classified parts of the pipeline as “red” due to extensive illegal connections by oil thieves. Shell’s own standards required either an immediate shutdown or “immediate corrective action” for facilities assigned a “red” status.
Instead, executives approved continued pumping. They argued that a shutdown would lead to “a significant number of new illegal connections” being installed elsewhere on the network.
Shell told the BBC that decisions were based on “complex factors,” including large-scale theft, illegal refining and militancy. The company said it worked with Nigerian authorities and local communities to address spills and conduct clean-up operations, regardless of the cause.
Residents of Bille dispute that defence. Fisherman Balafama Augustus Bruce, 64, and a claimant in the UK case, said that before 2011, the area was “a beautiful area” where people fished for sardines, catfish, tilapia and oysters. He said many species have now disappeared or become deformed.
“We used to fish around here. But because of the damage [the spills] have caused, nobody is fishing here again. Because of that, I’ve become poor. I eat from hand to mouth,” Bruce told the BBC.
Chief Boma Renner Dappa, spokesperson for Bille’s Local Leaders’ Council, said theft occurred but argued that Shell should still be held responsible.
“They are not concerned about what happens to you. Their concern is to continue to make profit,” he said.
Internal concerns about scrutiny also emerged. A February 2013 email showed executives considering an audit of oil theft and pipeline integrity between 2009 and 2012. Vincent Holtam, then General Manager for Onshore Assets, warned that it could “do more harm than good.”
Holtam wrote that the audit would likely come out “UNACCEPTABLE,” leaving Shell “very exposed in disputing any oil loss claims from the Government or compensation claims from the community.”
The BBC said the documents do not confirm whether the audit proceeded.
The following month, Shell launched “Project Madrid,” a confidential review of spill clean-up options. A 36-page presentation estimated that 100 illegal refineries operated around the pipeline, polluting about 9,000 hectares of water and another 9,000 hectares of land.
The presentation stated that Shell teams were cleaning 18 reported spills from an estimated 60 bunkering points. Executives were presented with options ranging from temporary shutdowns while tolerating theft to halting production for years to fully address the problem.
The pipeline resumed operations after temporary shutdowns for repairs in 2013. Shell sold the Nembe Creek Trunk Line last year to Renaissance Africa Energy, but Bille residents argue that the company still bears responsibility for years of operation.
The Bille community and others are seeking $1 billion through the UK lawsuit, comprising $250 million in compensation and $750 million for environmental clean-up.
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