Internal documents reveal Shell decision to keep polluted Niger Delta pipeline open despite staff warnings

Internal Shell documents disclosed in an ongoing UK court case show the company kept a major Nigerian pipeline running for years, even though its own staff had warned extensive illegal oil-theft was taking place, which resulted in oil spills throughout the Delta. The papers were analysed in a recent report, published by Amnesty International and seven partner organisations this week, including The Corner House, Hawkmoth, HEDA Resource Centre, and SOMO. The case was brought by two Nigerian communities in 2015, Bille and Ogale, who have accused Shell and its former subsidiary SPDC of causing serious environmental damage. The account in the report centres on the Nembe Creek Trunk Line near Bille, a river town in the coastal province of Rivers State, which carries 150,000 barrels of oil a day at full capacity. According to the Amnesty-led report, Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), was exempted in 2013 from parts of Shell’s own global safety standards. The exemption let oil keep flowing through pipelines even though the company’s managers acknowledged these connections needed “immediate corrective action or shutting in of the line” because of the illegal theft taking place. Internal communications show that concerns go back even further. In 2008, Shell’s then technical vice-president for the region, Markus Droll, objected to keeping the pipeline running, telling colleagues that keeping them open made him “pretty uncomfortable.” Ann Pickard, then the regional executive vice-president, overruled him and also chastised him for not marking his objection as ‘legally privileged,’ which protects communications from being disclosed in court. She also said continuing to operate as normal was "the lower risk to both people and environment." Speedboat gangs Oil theft in the Niger Delta has been going on for decades and has been hard to counter because gangs can use hit and run tactics in speedboats and disappear quickly to makeshift camps hidden in thick bush.Small groups of men drill a whole in one of the pipelines that criss-cross the riverine landscape and drain crude oil into barrels or tanks, which is then refined on-site or sold on the black market. In 2012, Shell staff visited four crude oil theft points in the Bille area. A report on the visit later described the "massive impact of oil theft activities." By 2013, Shell had launched a working group with senior staff codenamed "Project Madrid," to decide what to do about the pipeline. One internal presentation asked staff directly whether they would be “comfortable to continue producing, KNOWING that further environmental damage WILL occur?”.The presentation also identified 100 illegal refineries along the pipelines and widespread pollution surrounding them, and said that shutting the pipeline down would cost $194m (€167m) the first year, amounting up to $389m if the shutdown would be extended a second year. Shell chose to keep pumping and only stop if leaks exceeded 250 barrels or more over a period of one month. But the internal documents raise doubt about Shell’s ability to track these spills. Internal audits in 2013 found former subsidiary SPDC didn’t have real-time leak monitoring across much of its network. "Only major pipeline ruptures would result in station trips," the report noted. Separate Amnesty research has found Shell responded to spills more slowly than Nigerian law requires. Shell has long said its parent company played no part in operational decisions in Nigeria. But documents shown by the claimants' lawyers cast doubt on that. They suggest senior executives at Shell's parent company helped oversee Nigerian operations through a weekly "Crude Oil Theft Decision Review Board" that approved pipeline shutdowns, spending and risk levels. Avoiding clean-up The campaigners are calling on Dutch and UK governments to investigate whether Shell broke financial market rules by claiming that it and its subsidiary followed global company environmental and safety standards in the Niger Delta. It said this despite at the same time exempting SPDC from those standards between 2013 and 2016 so that oil could continue flowing through tampered pipelines. Shell finally sold SPDC to a Nigerian-led consortium, Renaissance Africa Energy, in 2025, avoiding decommissioning and clean-up costs which previous Shell estimates had put at $10.9bn. The consortium had no financial track record and needed Shell itself to lend it up to $1.2bn to complete the deal. Nigeria's oil regulator had voiced doubts over whether Renaissance could cover the costs. But the sale went ahead after the country's president intervened personally. Responding to the report a Shell representative said that it doesn't reflect the "challenging operating environment" in the Niger Delta at the time. It said its former subsidiary worked with Nigerian authorities and local communities to clean up spills, adding that the company's lawyers will defend the case “vigorously” at trial, whith hearings due to start in March 2027.