Inside a $1 Billion Pollution Cleanup Mess

In the more than a quarter century since Shell Plc left southern Nigeria, oil has continued to ooze from dormant wellheads and active pipelines, leaving the 386-square mile kingdom’s wetlands shimmering with a greasy rainbow sheen, its once-lush mangroves coated in crude, well-water smelling of benzene.

So when a $1 billion cleanup effort began in 2019, backed by Shell’s funding pledge and the United Nations, it was heralded as the most ambitious initiative of its kind anywhere in the world.

But documents seen by Bloomberg and reported for the first time indicate that the project is making one of the earth’s most polluted regions even dirtier.

Read The Big Take.