The Federal Government has beamed its searchlight on happenings within the Nigerian oil and gas sector and has descended on crude oil lifting activities.
President Muhammadu Buhari has consequently ordered the blacklisting of 113 vessels from lifting the nations’ crude oil as part of an effort to sanitize Nigeria’s oil industry plagued by corruption, crude theft and massive fraud.
The Federal Government has beamed its searchlight on happenings within the Nigerian oil and gas sector and has descended on crude oil lifting activities.
President Muhammadu Buhari has consequently ordered the blacklisting of 113 vessels from lifting the nations’ crude oil as part of an effort to sanitize Nigeria’s oil industry plagued by corruption, crude theft and massive fraud.
A memo dated Juky 18, 2015 and which originated from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) disclosed that President Muhammadu Buhari had directed the organisation to bar 113 vessels from lifting Nigeria crude oil from 27 designated terminals.
The memo, which was signed by Group General Manager in charge of Crude Oil Marketing Division of the NNPC; Engr G.O Komolafe, directed affected terminals to prevent the vessels from lifting crude oil within Nigeria’s territorial waters until further notice.
The memo also listed 27 terminals from which the vessels are prohibited to lift Nigerian crude. The terminals are: Forcados, Bonny, Bonga, Sea Eagle, Qua lboe, Erha, Yoho, Usan, Bonny River Terminal, Escravos, Agbami, Pennington, Escravos LPG FSO, Escravos Gas Terminal, Antan, Okwori, Odudu, Akpo, Brass, Abo, Okono, Oyo, lma, Okoro, Ukpokiti, Tulja, and Ebok.
The memo was copied to Director, DPR, DG NIMASA, Comptroller General Customs and the Chief of Naval Staff.
Sources disclosed that the the blacklisted vessels were implicated in a pattern of fraud that resulted in the shortchanging of Nigerians. “Many of the vessels had documents in Chinese, Russian or French names, and used these different languages to hide their illicit lifting of Nigerian crude,” said the source.
He added that numerous officials of former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, the NNPC as well as the Ministry of Petroleum were involved in facilitating the illegal lifting of Nigerian crude.
Mr. Komolafe’s memo also announced that the blacklisted vessels would be prohibited from operating within Nigeria’s territorial waters.
It was learnt that the vessels were mostly linked with oil bunkering and sophisticated theft of crude from numerous NNPC loading facilities.
(See names of some of the blacklisted vessels on page 2)
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