Shell ignored warnings of spill clean-up ‘rip-off’, whistle-blower tells BBC

A BBC investigation has uncovered allegations that power large Shell has ignored repeated warnings {that a} controversial clean-up operation of oil-polluted areas of southern Nigeria has been beset by issues and corruption.

The multinational headquartered in London, together with the Nigerian authorities, has repeatedly said that work to wash up oil-contaminated websites of Ogoniland, which kicked off round eight years in the past, goes effectively.

However the BBC has found proof that they have been warned repeatedly over a number of years that the scheme, arrange by the federal government and funded by numerous oil corporations to the tune of $1bn (£805m), has been affected by a string of points.

One shut observer has described the clean-up challenge as a “con” and a “rip-off” that has wasted cash and left the folks of Ogonliland within the Niger Delta area persevering with to stay with the devastating affect of oil air pollution – 13 years after a ground-breaking UN report lifted the lid on the seriousness of their state of affairs.

Shell advised the BBC: “The working atmosphere within the Niger Delta stays difficult due to the large scale of unlawful actions corresponding to oil theft.

“When spills do occur from our services we clear up and remediate, whatever the trigger. If it is an operational spill, we additionally compensate folks and communities.”

The allegations come as a civil trial is anticipated to start on Thursday on the Excessive Courtroom in London, the place attorneys representing two Ogoniland communities of round 50,000 inhabitants will say Shell should take duty for oil air pollution that occurred between 1989 and 2020, allegedly from its infrastructure.

The communities say the spills have left them with out clear water, unable to farm and fish, and created severe dangers to public well being.

Shell, which has been pushing to promote its property within the West African nation to deal with offshore drilling and onshore gasoline, has indicated it is going to defend the claims.

It denies wrongdoing and says spills within the area have been attributable to sabotage, theft and unlawful refining for which the corporate says it’s not liable.

The BBC has visited the affected areas within the Niger Delta, the place Shell, the most important non-public oil and gasoline firm within the nation, found the existence of crude oil 68 years in the past.

The UN says a minimum of 13 million barrels – or 1.5 million tonnes – of crude oil have been spilled since 1958 in a minimum of 7,000 incidents within the Niger Delta area.

The spills have left many households fearful for his or her well being and livelihoods.

Grace Audi, 37, lives together with her companion and two-year-old in Ogale, the place there have been a minimum of 40 oil spills from Shell’s infrastructure, in response to Leigh Day, the UK-law agency representing the communities on this case.

Her household and neighbours solely have entry to a contaminated borehole, forcing them to purchase clear water to make use of for ingesting, cooking, washing and, as soon as a day, flushing, at a value of 4,500 Nigerian naira ($3, £2.40) – in an space the place the common every day wage is lower than $8.

It’s a acquainted story to many in Ogoniland.

Paulina Agbekpekpe advised the BBC that lush greenery as soon as surrounded thriving mangroves of her neighborhood in Bodo – which isn’t a kind of going to court docket on Thursday. She mentioned the rivers and ponds used to brim with every kind of animals and fish, significantly periwinkle.

“The place was greener, not solely mangroves, however all by the shoreline – there have been pawpaw timber, palm timber and extra. However through the spills, the destruction has polluted all over the place,” the 50-year-old mom of six mentioned.

Her household had for generations survived on fishing, till a devastating spill 10 years in the past.

“A lot of the kids – from the ingesting water – have gotten illnesses. Many have died. I’ve misplaced eight children. My husband is sick.

“As a result of our livelihoods have been taken away, folks in Bodo are hungry and struggling.”

In 2011, the UN’s Surroundings Programme (UNEP) printed a serious examine into the affect of air pollution on the oil-rich space.

It discovered members of 1 neighborhood in Ogoniland have been ingesting water contaminated with a recognized carcinogen at ranges greater than 900 instances above the World Well being Group (WHO) guideline. The identical chemical, benzene, was detected in all their air samples.

It additionally discovered that websites that Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary, the Shell Petroleum Improvement Firm of Nigeria (SPDC), claimed to have remediated, have been nonetheless polluted and the strategies they used didn’t attain regulatory necessities.

The report concluded {that a} complete clean-up of the world would take 25-30 years – and it led to the formation of the Hydrocarbon Air pollution Remediation Challenge (Hyprep).

This was initially established by the Nigerian authorities in 2012, however no clean-up was began – till it was relaunched by a brand new authorities in December 2016.

Hyprep was part-funded by oil firms together with the state-owned Nigerian Nationwide Petroleum Firm (NNPC) and Shell, which gave $350m.

Nonetheless, the BBC has seen inside paperwork that recommend representatives of Shell and of the Nigerian authorities have been warned quite a few instances of the company’s alleged fraudulent practices.

One particular person conscious of the challenge spoke to the BBC about their issues – and requested to stay nameless out of a worry of reprisals.

“It’s normal data that basically what we’re doing is a rip-off. Most of it’s to idiot the Ogoni folks,” the whistle-blower mentioned.

“It is a con perpetuated in order that more cash will be put into the pot and find yourself within the pockets of politicians and different folks in energy.”

The allegations about failings at Hyprep embrace:

• Contracts being awarded to firms that had no related expertise
• Laboratory outcomes being falsified – generally labelling contaminated soil and water as clear
• Challenge prices being inflated
• Exterior auditors every now and then being blocked from checking the clean-up on websites had been finished correctly.

Within the minutes of 1 assembly in 2023, attended by representatives from Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary, the UNEP and Hyprep, it was identified that “incompetent” contractors have been “being engaged once more” and that they need to “not be allowed to additional degrade the atmosphere”.

In a separate leaked report seen by the BBC from the identical 12 months, it was identified that laboratory outcomes have been “repeatedly reported with deviations”.

In 2022, the UN wrote to the Nigeria’s atmosphere ministry, warning that if nothing modified, the “extraordinarily poor requirements” of the clean-up would proceed.

The BBC has requested Hyprep and the Nigerian authorities to touch upon the allegations however has obtained no response.

However our investigation has revealed proof that Shell was conscious of the issues.

In a gathering with the British excessive commissioner to Nigeria in January final 12 months, minutes of which have been obtained beneath the Freedom of Data Act, Shell representatives acknowledged the “institutional challenges” of the clean-up company and the prospect of the refusal of “future funding” in the direction of it.

Shell advised the BBC: “Hyprep is an company established and overseen by the federal authorities of Nigeria, with its governing council largely made up of senior ministers and authorities officers, together with 5 representatives of communities and NGOs and a single Shell consultant.”

This isn’t the one remediation challenge in Ogoniland that’s alleged to have been botched.

In 2015, Shell agreed to a £55m settlement for a clean-up after two catastrophic spills in 2008 from its infrastructure within the space Bodo.

The corporate mentioned the clean-up, performed by the Bodo Mediation Initiative (BMI), which is supposed to function a mediator between oil firms, together with Shell, and the Bodo neighborhood (and is part-funded by the oil large and Nigerian regulators) has been licensed as 98% full.

Nonetheless, the BBC visited websites inside the space and located crude oil oozing from the soil and floating on waters.

Shell and the BMI insist any occurrences of oil spills within the area are due to theft – recognized within the trade as “oil bunkering”.

“There’s a plan to name again the contractors to wash these areas to specification, to straightforward,” Boniface Dumpe, a director on the BMI, advised the BBC.

“It’s the duty of all stakeholders, Shell, sure, to deal with their services, to make sure that re-oiling doesn’t come from their services.

“However for the areas which have been cleaned. I’d suppose that some duty can also be for the neighborhood to make sure that some unlawful actions doesn’t additionally trigger re-pollution.”

Shell mentioned it takes energetic measures to forestall oil spills attributable to oil bunkering.

The corporate mentioned: “We take in depth steps to forestall this exercise and the spills it causes together with aerial surveillance, eradicating unlawful connections on pipelines, and by constructing metal cages to guard wellheads.”

The alleged failings within the oil clean-up come as Shell prepares to promote its Nigerian subsidiary, the SPDC, to Renaissance Africa, a consortium of native and worldwide firms.

Some locals in Ogoniland have accused the oil large of “operating away” from correctly cleansing up the land and waters it’s alleged to have polluted.

In addition they worry Shell should still revenue from the world by merely buying and selling the oil extracted from the area in future.

“The operations of whichever oil operator takes over the related pipelines may have an infinite affect on their day-to-day life,” Joe Snape, a lawyer at Leigh Day, advised the BBC.

“There’s extremely little element about what these offers will result in.

“It’s unclear how Renaissance [Africa] will act going ahead. Not less than with Shell we now have technique of holding them to account.”

Mineral merchandise, like petroleum oil and gasoline, account for 90% of exports from Nigeria, most of which comes from the Niger Delta area.

Locals, whose foremost supply of livelihood has been agriculture and fishing, advised the BBC that for the reason that discovery of oil, or what some confer with as “black gold”, their dwelling had been pumped for revenue – by main oil firms, by oil thieves and by corrupt politicians.

They are saying they’ve seen no profit, solely struggling – like Endurance Ogboe who blames current oil spills for her failing crops.

“Previously if I harvest I can eat some with my household and even promote some… however for the previous few years I couldn’t get something. It is actually unhealthy,” the 42-year-old the BBC.