"Shell pumped oil through Nigeria pipeline for years despite pollution evidence, documents show", 3 June 2026

British multinational Shell continued operating a major oil pipeline in Nigeria for years even though it knew it was causing widespread pollution - despite a warning from its own staff that it was outside its own technical standards, internal documents obtained by the BBC show.

The files, including emails and presentations, reveal that a senior Shell executive cautioned as early as 2008 about the risks of continuing to pump millions of barrels of unrefined fuel through one of the company's main pipelines in Africa's biggest oil producer while it was subject to massive and destructive uncontrolled theft and infrastructure failures.

Across Nigeria's oil-rich southern Niger Delta, decades of oil spills have left a landscape deeply scarred, with wetlands increasingly coated in crude and contaminated sediment.

The BBC obtained the internal documents after Shell disclosed them as part of ongoing legal proceedings in the UK brought by communities living around the creeks and mangroves of the Niger Delta, who want Shell to be liable for the pollution caused by more than 100 leaks stemming from theft and illegal refining of oil between 2011 and 2013 that have damaged their health, environment and livelihoods.

The 60-mile (96.5km) Nembe Creek Trunk Line runs near the riverine community of Bille, which is made up of 45 islands, from inland oilfields to a coastal processing site for exporting...

The company argues that it took significant steps to tackle illegal theft but that Nigeria's poor security environment made it impossible to prevent gangs from targeting its infrastructure...

Law firm Leigh Day says the communities it is representing in the UK case "have always argued that Shell plc in London was ultimately making the key decisions in relation to its Nigerian subsidiary which led to the destruction of their environment and are determined to hold the company responsible for the oil pollution which still blights their lives today".

Shell told the BBC it had spoken to the three former executives named in the documents and that none wanted to respond directly. The company says members of the Bille community were among those who took part in theft of oil.

The BBC asked the Nigerian government to respond to Shell's claim that the authorities were unable to deal with the organised criminality, but has not received an answer.

A Shell spokesperson said, "We strongly believe in the merits of our case and will vigorously defend the claims at trial next year."