The sticky black truth

Shell makes billions of dollars from selling oil and gas every year, and spends a fair bit of it on glossy marketing – including a project called #makethefuture, which asks young people for bright ideas to change the world.

But no amount of shiny PR can hide the sticky black truth about Shell’s ongoing pollution in southern Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta.

Home to 31 million people, the delta is one of the 10 most important wetland and coastal marine ecosystems in the world. Shell first started pumping oil here in 1958, and now runs around 50 oil fields and a 5,000 km pipeline network.

And every year, more oil from its broken pipelines and wells seeps into the delta’s water and soil.

Sadly, despite its riches, Shell still hasn’t come up with any bright ideas for how to stop this happening - or how to clean up the environment properly afterwards.