From all available information, there is an upsurge in attacks on marine crafts; especially oil tankers, these attacks which now occur almost every other day have also given rise to a new venture- oil theft.
The veracity of the attacks perhaps was what prompted the Federal Government to contemplate establishing a task force to tackle the menace.
Government says that an estimated 180,000 barrels of oil equivalent daily or approximately $7 billion yearly was lost to oil theft.
From all available information, there is an upsurge in attacks on marine crafts; especially oil tankers, these attacks which now occur almost every other day have also given rise to a new venture- oil theft.
The veracity of the attacks perhaps was what prompted the Federal Government to contemplate establishing a task force to tackle the menace.
Government says that an estimated 180,000 barrels of oil equivalent daily or approximately $7 billion yearly was lost to oil theft.
Prior to now, what is most rampant were attacks on cargo laden ships, but all that has changed as pirates and criminally-minded elements have now taken it to another level. Crude oil theft is now a common phenomenon.
In the last two weeks there have been cases of arrests of ships on Nigerian waters for illegal bunkering, crude oil theft and sundry oil-theft related offences.
As recent as last week there were reports of the arrest of a Libyan crude oil tanker, this came a few days after another tanker was arrested on Lagos waters for being in possession of illegally-refined petroleum products.
We recall that in 2010, Denmark-based maritime security intelligence company; Risk Intelligence, disclosed that there were 58 recorded piracy-related maritime security incidents in the Nigerian offshore and coastal waters.
This is a remarkable reduction when compared with the 91 recorded incidents for 2009 and 114 incidents for 2008.
According to the group, these figures however presented a disguised reprieve as a more disturbing trend surfaced, because as the amnesty programme of the Federal Government faltered, mid-ranking militants in the Niger Delta increasingly turned to offshore kidnappings-for-ransom. Consequently, in 2010, a total of 18 attacks involving kidnap-for-ransom were recorded.
Global reports and local findings are in agreement that maritime insecurity in Nigeria is driven by different factors along different parts of the shoreline. Off Lagos and the South-West of Nigeria, piracy has traditionally been of a subsistence character with relatively small shore-based groups preying on ships as they approach Lagos.
Subsistence piracy and fisheries disputes are common occurrences along the Bakassi, Cross-Rivers and Akwa Ibom coasts where attacks intensified, largely as a result of the unresolved Bakassi Peninsula issue and corrupt Nigerian licensing practices for fishing vessels.
There are confirmations that the main targets of attacks are Nigerian-flagged, but foreign owned, fishing vessels.
But in the Bonny River axis, the preponderance of attacks are on oil tankers laden with crude oil and petroleum products.
The attack on the French ship Bourbon Leda with five Nigerians, two Ghanaians, one Cameroonian and one Indonesian on board on January 4, 2009, perhaps opened the floodgates of such operations, after that, there had been several others. The ‘success’ that was recorded by the pirates emboldened them, such that shortly after the January attack, they also boarded an Exxon tanker MV Ngoni and stole some items and also seized a tugboat.
To say that the serial pirate attacks and oil theft have had a devastating effect on the economy of Nigeria is to say the least. It has even become more alarming so much that recently, the minister of petroleum resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke announced the creation of task force on crude oil theft.
Alison-Madueke noted that crude oil theft from Nigerian waters by foreign thieves had escalated in the last six months, resulting in the loss of an estimated 180,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day of $7 billion yearly according to current crude price in the international market.
"There has been an escalation in crude theft over the last six months or so. And we have seen particularly foreign crude thieves coming into our waters as well more recently to take our crude. So we taught it was critical that we stem these abuses at this time with the involvement of all stakeholders. At the moment, we are losing approximately 180,000 barrels of oil equivalent daily at this time, if you look at the international cost of a barrel, it would be estimated at approximately $7 billion yearly," she said.
Similarly, the Managing Direct of Shell Petroleum development Company of Nigeria (SPDC), Mr. Mutiu Sunmonu also recently said that Nigeria would lose about N800 billion to oil theft this year if the alleged on-going illegal refining and bunkering at the Nembe Creek Trunk line was not stopped by the Federal Government immediately.
Sunmonu added that the country loses about 140,000 barrels daily. This would mean that on the average about 50,400,000 barrels would be lost yearly to the illegal bunkering in the creeks, which is a huge drain on the economy.
The petroleum minister confirmed that the creation of the task force became necessary in view of the impact of the crude theft in terms of economic and environmental losses to this nation.
In all of these, one fact is sacrosanct and that is, there can not be a successful oil theft if the nation’s waters are secured.
The collaboration between the Nigerian Navy and the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) ought to tackle the menace of piracy and sea robbery on Nigerian waters, but this is hardly the case, except for pockets of arrests of small boats on Lagos waters.
The recent contract that was entered into between NIMASA and a private concern has been touted as the panacea for the menace, we hope this will indeed bring the succor, but we seriously doubt it.
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