That's a good point. I did a little Googling for news on the matter, and it seems like the thefts were made by drilling holes in the pipeline [1], and the amoun

That's a good point. I did a little Googling for news on the matter, and it seems like the thefts were made by drilling holes in the pipeline [1], and the amount stolen accounts for almost half of the 150,000 barrels-per-day capacity of the pipeline. Shell shut the pipeline down both due to the leaks and to the monetary losses ($100m in a week) incurred. So, I'm not sure - it seems pretty clear that the 60,000 barrels a day was theft, and not a spill, but presumably there's leakage after clandestinely drilling holes in high pressure oil lines. I don't know if pipeline theft should be included in a list of oil industry screw-ups, unless you want to expand the term to include thieves and black-marketeers (not that Shell are saints in the Niger Delta, there's almost certainly blood on their hands [2]) [1] http://www.voanews.com/content/shell-to-shut-down-major-pipeline-in-nigeria/1631767.html http://www.voanews.com/content/shell-to-shut-down-major-pipe... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Saro-Wiwa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Saro-Wiwa