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Page added on September 21, 2013
Oil Thieves Bleed Nigeria, Officials Profit
Oil is being stolen on an “industrial scale” in Nigeria, the world’s 13th largest producer, and the country’s politicians and security officials are among those profiting, according to a new report from a prominent British research group.
Thieves steal an estimated average of 100,000 barrels a day, the report said; working in elaborate networks and protected by corrupted security officials, they tap into the huge and isolated network of pipes that crisscross the country’s swampy southern Niger Delta region. The price of oil fluctuates, but a hypothetical per-barrel price of $100 would mean an annual loss of $3.65 billion. Oil closed at $107.28 per barrel on Thursday.
Much of this oil winds up being exported globally, said the report, which was released Thursday by the London-based organization Chatham House. The problem has reached such proportions that major oil companies operating in Nigeria have recently complained that theft is cutting significantly into production.
A similar report last year, commissioned by the Nigerian government but largely ignored, said that over the preceding decade, thieves had been stealing 6 percent to 30 percent of the country’s daily production. “Hydrocarbon theft is a major source of loss of revenue to the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” said that report, prepared by the country’s former top anticorruption official, Nuhu Ribadu. It described the problem then as an “emergency.”
The full extent of the country’s larcenous ingenuity is on display in the oil thievery. There is “theft from tank farms, refinery storage tanks, jetties and ports,” according to the Nigerian report. “Officials and private actors disguise theft through manipulation of meters and shipping documents.”
Small-scale pipeline tapping operations can easily be detected in short daytime trips into the swamps from the Niger Delta’s population centers. Telltale plumes of smoke from illegal refining operations rise above the water.
But more significant “bunkering,” as oil theft is known here, involves siphoning oil from pipes on land or underwater, loading it onto small barges, then transferring it to bigger barges offshore in the Gulf of Guinea. Sometimes thieves use pipes up to 12 inches in diameter to tap the lines, according to Chatham House. Sometimes crude is stolen from export terminals.
The Chatham House report underscored profiteering at high levels.
“Top Nigerian officials cut their teeth in the oil theft business during military rule,” it said. “Over time, evidence surfaced that corrupt members of the security forces were actively involved. The country’s return to democracy in 1999 then gave some civilian officials and political ‘godfathers’ more access to stolen oil.” Security officials are said to extort payments from the oil thieves in return for protection, according to Chatham House.
The Chatham House report suggested that high oil prices have contributed to the incentive to steal. But it was inconclusive on the question of how much of the stolen crude was exported, and how much was processed in operations in the Nigerian swamps. “The bush refining business is highly decentralized and secretive,” it said, “which makes its size hard to estimate.”
Mr. Ribadu’s report gave a higher possible figure for the scale of daily theft — 250,000 barrels — but the Chatham House document emphasized the unreliability of figures from government and oil companies. Mr. Ribadu suggested, in stronger terms than the more recent document, that the problem is growing, noting that Shell claimed a fivefold increase in losses between 2009 and 2012, from 10,000 barrels per day to 50,000 in March of last year.
Chatham House, by contrast, said that “outsiders should look closely at claims that Nigeria is losing oil at unheard-of rates,” adding that “the high divergence in industrywide estimates makes it hard to gauge trends reliably.”
8 Comments on "Oil Thieves Bleed Nigeria, Officials Profit"
DC on Sat, 21st Sep 2013 7:04 pm
Shell Thieves Bleed Nigeria, Shell Profits
Fixed if fer ye NYT!
While the above is true in a broad sense, it leaves out that the environment exists largely due to Shells incredibly corrupt and violent practices in the country. The theft could best be described a case of monkey see, monkey do.Is stealing from theives theft? The corrupt officials were largely put in place to give Shell a free hand in the Niger in the first place, they can hardly object to the locals taking a cut of there own now can they?
Now Nigeria of course, does not have a nationalized oil industry. And if one looks at the the countries that do, many of the weaker ones have been targeted for ‘liberation’ by US and allied forces of late. IF Nigeria’s oil industry were state owned and controlled, it quite possible that all this endemic corruption might be lessened somewhat. Its no guarantee, as many african regimes are hopelessly corrupt when it come to resource extraction, but many observers of the sad situation there have placed the blame squarely on Royal Dutch Shell and the other western oil cos deplorable conduct there.
The real story goes more like this.
Shell moves in, utterly destroys the local environment, thus depriving the people of means to make a living.
Shel installs corrupt, and violent govt that refuses to mitigate environmental damage or share the wealth generated in any way with the peopl most affected.
People resort to tapping to make a living they no longer can in one of the most polluted places on Earth.
Sanctimonious propagandist in comfortable office in NYC writes pro-oil propaganda about just how bad it is that poor oil corporations are being out-thieved by local people in Africa and the very corrupt officials they themselves installed to help facilitate there own immoral conduct.
But such fact-based nuances never made it into this NYT puff piece did it?
Luke on Sat, 21st Sep 2013 7:57 pm
With Shell Nigeria and the Artic will go to Hell.
actioncjackson on Sat, 21st Sep 2013 9:42 pm
Nice DC.
GregT on Sat, 21st Sep 2013 11:13 pm
DC tells it like it is, once again.
BillT on Sun, 22nd Sep 2013 1:44 am
“Oil Thieves Bleed Nigeria, Officials Profit” could also be a US headline:
“Wealth Thieves Bleed Middle Class, Officials Profit”
The US is another banana republic run by banksters and corrupt politicians, all wanting to live on ‘Elysium’. I rarely recommend a movie but this one was worth seeing. It gives you a picture of what your Masters want for your and their future.
DC on Sun, 22nd Sep 2013 3:24 am
Thanks all, another thing the NYT’s article makes abundantly clear(you dont even need to read between the lines-its practically spelled out for the reader), is the the oil and its profits, there, are not the property of the people of Nigeria, but rather that of Shell and its partners.
Unlike the NYT’s corporate slant of this theft, I can only regard the people tapping and selling as totally appropriate. The oil IS theres after, not Shells. When they ‘steal’ and sell it, in a odd way, its actually the only honest thing going on there.
The official theft of course, does not fall into that category, as they are simply double-dipping. Shells bribes were clearly not deemed sufficient by the local puppets, so the corrupt gov’t officials are just topping up the bribes, none of which benefits anyone other than the already well-heeled Nigerian elites of course.
Frank Kling on Sun, 22nd Sep 2013 5:03 am
Welcome to Africa.
GregT on Sun, 22nd Sep 2013 5:57 am
Africans, welcome to a world dominated by the American Empire, controlled by the Zionist central banking cartels, and funded by taxpayers everywhere.
They don’t give a crap about you, anymore then they care about goyim anywhere. Especially the American sheep, who will continue to pay for their warmongering, until even the Americans themselves, are starving in the streets.
Welcome to the Empire, enjoy it while it lasts.