Even as the nation grapples with the challenges of an insecure maritime domain and a corruption-riddled oil and gas sector, shocking revelations have emerged pointing to large-scale involvement of some indigenous ship owners, their foreign collaborators and pirates in the theft of the nation’s crude oil and refined products
The resurgence of piracy on Nigerian coast and more especially, around the oil-rich Niger Delta has been fingered as fallout of large scale oil theft within the Nigerian coast.
Even as the nation grapples with the challenges of an insecure maritime domain and a corruption-riddled oil and gas sector, shocking revelations have emerged pointing to large-scale involvement of some indigenous ship owners, their foreign collaborators and pirates in the theft of the nation’s crude oil and refined products
The resurgence of piracy on Nigerian coast and more especially, around the oil-rich Niger Delta has been fingered as fallout of large scale oil theft within the Nigerian coast.
Foreign and local sources confirmed last week to Shipping Position Daily that oil thieves in Nigeria cart way about 150,000 barrels of crude oil every day. Experts put the average cost at about $16 million or N2.5 billion, calculated at oil price of $105 per barrel and a naira exchange rate of about N160 to a dollar.
According to the experts, oil theft is either carried out by pirates who hijack oil-laden takers or by militants and hoodlums who cut pipelines or use explosives to blow-up pipes and siphon the oil into waiting ships.
To underscore this, the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) has already warned its members over the oil scams involving the fraudulent sale of Nigerian petroleum products.
Some Nigerian ship owners (identities withheld) have also been named in some cases where “pirates seize tankers and leave them stationary off the coast, transferring the cargoes to a Nigerian tanker by night”.
The sources also hinted that such stolen oil products are sold in Nigeria or in Cotonou, Benin Republic.
“These indigenous ships often shuttle between Cotonou and Lagos and the Niger Delta, many of them are permanently on lay-by, awaiting patronage form unscrupulous owners of stolen oil”, our correspondent was told last week.
They alleged further that while theft of refined products is prevalent in the Lagos maritime domain, daredevil pirates that attack tankers often target crude oil-laden ones.
Shipping Position Daily confirmed on Friday that another attack on an oil tanker was foiled last Wednesday by armed naval guards who were onboard the vessel. The latest occurred about 5.8 nautical miles off Port Harcourt Fairway Buoy. According to our source, “seven heavily armed robbers in a speed boat approached a tanker underway. The tanker raised alarm, increased speed and set course away from land…..”
Also buttressing the allegation and the scourge of oil theft, London-based maritime security company; AKE affirmed that” piracy attacks in the Gulf of Guinea doubled last month as more tankers were hijacked so their stolen oil-product cargoes could be sold on shore.”
The development coincided with the an alarm that was raised also last week by the Group Managing Director of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Mr. Austen Oniwon that oil thieves may one day take over the machinery of government in the country.
The NNPC boss told board members and commissioners of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission at an interactive session in Abuja, that “Nigeria will wake up one day to discover that pipeline thieves have taken over the country.”
According to him, pipeline vandalism presents the single biggest threat to the smooth operation of the petroleum industry in the country currently, and if left unchecked
“If we fail to curb this trend, we are inadvertently empowering these criminals to take over our local government areas; and by the time they do that, they will move on to take charge of the states since they now have the resources to decide who gets to power; and one day, we may as well wake up to discover that they have taken over the entire country.
“In the last few months, we have lost millions of dollars in shut-in oil wells as a result of the activities of oil thieves, who breach our crude lines to steal oil. So far, the Trans-Forcados and the Trans-Niger Trunk lines have been shut-in due to attack on the facilities by thieves.”
According to Oniwon, if the activities of oil thieves are left unchecked, it could degenerate to a similar scenario in countries like Mexico and Colombia, where criminals had empowered themselves through nefarious activities and were now calling the shots because they had stolen so much from the system through under-world operations.
“These criminals steal both crude and refined petroleum products and sell same to enrich their pockets, we must work collectively to stop them,” he added.
“Eight vessels were attacked in February, raising the total to 12 for this year’s first two months, Rory Lamrock, an analyst at AKE, said from London last week. Pirate activity in the region jumped 42 percent last year as 64 ships were attacked, he said. The gulf, off Africa’s western coast, is bordered by countries including Nigeria, Benin and Cameroon.
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