Numerous oil spills, which have not been adequately cleaned up, have left local communities with little option but to drink polluted water, eat contaminated fish, farm on spoiled land, and breathe in air that stinks of oil and gas.

According to a Shell bloke on TV recently, the reason is because gangs from the Delta Mafia breach the pipelines, siphon off oil and leave the pipeline gushing into fields, rivers etc. when they’re gone. Allegedly, many of the local cops and politicians are in cahoots with the crooks and get a %age of the stolen oil. This bloke said blaming Shell is blaming the victim.

Any truth in this?

Well, there’s plentiful truth in there being raids on oil pipes. And injections of wealth such as oil brings in Africa tend to cause corruption and competition for access to the resource. Whether this exonerates Shell from any blame is a different matter – but I can see why this advert might not be sensible to produce (Sunny, I assume you have taken legal advice on this?).

Watchman – which bit do you think is actually libellous or factually incorrect?

@1 Flowerpower: “According to a Shell bloke on TV recently, the reason is because gangs from the Delta Mafia breach the pipelines, siphon off oil and leave the pipeline gushing into fields, rivers etc. when they’re gone.”

My understanding of this is from news reports and a bit of common sense. Nigerian criminals do not possess their own oil refineries, so it is implausible that they will be stealing crude oil from Shell’s pipes. If Shell’s crude oil pipes are damaged by local people, it is for terrorist/political motives.

Pipes that supply refined oil — petrol, diesel, kerosene — are cracked for criminal/economic motives. The ability to crack a pipe takes a bit of technical knowledge if the perpetrator wishes to live. Thus the original cracking is done by organised criminals who load up a couple of tankers and leave the locals to the rest. In Europe, we know that this happens because poor Nigerians die in explosions when trying to get free fuel.

If we assume that the value to Shell of refined product by mass is ten times as much as crude oil, they are going to be pretty bothered when people siphon it off. They’ll notice it and seek out the theft.

Inevitably, there is environmental damage whenever Shell’s pipelines are abused or misused. The argument presented by the campaigners mentioned in the OP is that Shell doesn’t care about transit losses of crude oil from its pipelines. Which is a different argument entirely.

Shell said last year they were losing up to 100,000 barrels of crude a day ( 5 per cent of national production ) from holes being bored in pipelines and stealing from the wellhead.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article5776150.ece

@5 Richard W: Thanks for the link.

The proclaimed financial losses for crude oil are beyond belief. The lower limit of a $300 million per annum loss to theft is so ridiculously large — if you steal 1% of South Africa’s diamond production, you’ll fill a few buckets; to steal 1% of Nigeria’s oil requires tanker after tanker. And Shell allow those tankers to sail into the distance taking away their investment?

A tanker truck carries ~21,000 litres or 132 barrels. To steal 20,000 barrels per day requires a truck fleet of 150, and for 100,000 barrels 750 trucks are required. If somebody was stealing $300 million a year from you, don’t you think that you’d be able to find the 150 trucks that took the goods away, day in day out? You might manage a couple of trips a day, so you might need fewer trucks.

I am happy to accept that Shell’s alleged “pipeline losses” are between 1% and 5%. A smidge will be polluting land owing to leakage and another smidge will be stolen. And there will be “other losses”.

Sunny@3

I’m no expert on defamation, so I must ask – does an allegation have to be explicit and unequivocal to be an actionable libel? The poster doesn’t actually say ‘Shell are poisoning the Niger Delta’ but it does nonetheless juxtapose two select observations in a way that alludes to Shell being culpable.

… does an allegation have to be explicit and unequivocal to be an actionable libel?

No.

The poster doesn’t actually say ‘Shell are poisoning the Niger Delta’ but it does nonetheless juxtapose two select observations in a way that alludes to Shell being culpable.

Quite.

Charlieman @ 4 & 6

And Shell allow those tankers to sail into the distance taking away their investment?

No. They put pressure on the Nigerian government to use its navy to intercept them. On 10th February this year, for example, an oil vessel was boarded by the Nigerian navy ad found to be containing 723,628 tonnes of allegedly stolen crude.

Nigerian criminals do not possess their own oil refineries, so it is implausible that they will be stealing crude oil from Shell’s pipes.

You may find it implausible but it is happening.
The Joint Task Force trying to combat it estimates between 500,000 and 800,000 barrels of CRUDE are stolen daily. A recent snapshot audit found the Trans-Escravos Pipeline at Yokri, Delta State had 14 spots damaged between January 18 and 29, 2010.

Sunny,

I personally think the bulk of the advert is true, but the implication that the direct cause of the delta pollution is Shell’s profits might cause problems before saying a certain Judge Eady…

The Financial Times didn’t carry the advert for a reason, and as I like this site, I thought I’d ask a stupid question…

Hate to say this (as I’m a supporter of AI) but could this be another example of the campaigning arm of AI being overzealous and not fully clearing it with (the far more important) research and illegal side of AI? It does happen…

Legal not illegal – dam it!