Nigeria losing 150,000 barrels of oil per day to corruption
ABUJA, 22 February 2012 (SAPA-AFP) – Oil companies in Nigeria are battling against a rising theft that is costing them an estimated 150,000 barrels of crude each day, an oil major official said on Tuesday. Ian Craig, vice president for Shell Exploration and Production Africa said militant attacks on oil installations in the southern Niger Delta region had slowed down, but oil theft has surged. “The greatest challenge … is the massive organised oil theft business and the criminality and corruption which it fosters,” Craig told an annual oil conference of industry players and government. The stolen oil fuels a lucrative black market across Africa’s top oil exporter and its neighbours. “The volume of oil which is stolen is difficult to estimate but is probably in the region of 150,000” barrels, said Craig. Attacks on oil installations by militants claiming to be fighting for a share of the oil wealth for locals had, at their peak, slashed Nigeria’s production by about a million barrels a day. A 2009 government amnesty for the militants ended the violence and saw output rebound to levels not seen in years. “We have been able to bring production back but it is still below pre-militancy levels,” said Craig. Production stood at 2.18 million barrels per day in January, according to the International Energy Agency. The oil-and-gas industry accounts for around two-thirds of government revenue and more than 90 percent of export earnings in Nigeria. – Sapa-AFP
Nigeria losing 150 000 barrels of oil per day
By Jon Gambrell, Associated Press
24 April 2011 LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) –- Politicians and military leaders — not militants — are responsible for the majority of oil thefts in Nigeria’s crude-rich southern delta, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable quoting a Nigerian official and released by WikiLeaks. A member of a government panel on troubles in nation’s Niger Delta implicated Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, a general whose brother became president, and former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar as being the biggest forces behind the thefts, the cable claims. Those thefts also fuel arms sales to the restive region while causing environmental damage and cutting production in a nation crucial to U.S. oil supplies. “It is in the interests of these people to make it appear that the Niger Delta problem is intractable,” the Jan. 2009 cable quotes panel member Tony Uranta as saying. “As a result, they prop up the militants, including some who have an ideological basis for their actions.” Abubakar, who ran unsuccessfully this year as a presidential candidate in a ruling-party primary, denied the allegations Monday. “Atiku said this is a recycled old tale told again and again by business rivals unable to match the business success,” a statement issued to The Associated Press read. “Atiku is unaware of any links that the late General Yar’Adua had with bunkering and he believed absolutely that this is false accusation.” Yar’Adua, who served as second-in-command of the country’s military government in the late 1970s, died in prison in 1997 after being arrested for criticizing military dictator Sani Abacha. His brother, the President Umaru Yar’Adua, died in May 2010. The diplomatic cable quotes Uranta as blaming “no more than 15 per cent” of oil thefts on militants operating in the delta, a tropical maze of creeks and waterways about the size of South Carolina. Instead, politicians, retired admirals and generals and others in the country’s elite profit from the thefts. Typically, thieves solder or cut into oil pipelines running through the mangrove swamps of the delta. Some refine the crude into kerosene or diesel in crude refineries, while other oil sails out to foreign ports for sale. “Uranta claimed that the late Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, the president’s brother, had been the ‘biggest’ bunkerer,” the cable reads, using the local term for oil thieves. “When he died, his holdings were taken over by his brothers but managed on their behalf by his close personal friend, former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar.” The large-scale theft, compounded by anger over unceasing poverty and pollution in the delta despite 50 years of oil production, led to an uprising of militants in the region beginning in 2006. Military-grade weapons funneled into the region, turning gunrunners into militant leaders who espoused political ideas — but kept their eyes on the profits from stolen oil. […]
Serves these destructive bastards right. Nigeria is one of the most polluted places on the planet, thanks to Big Oil. Hearing that they are "getting ripped off" is divine justice. They have the gall to complain about it, after absolutely devastating the local communities and polluting the landscape.
I've got no love for these thieves whatsoever. The planet and the people of this planet would be better off if they were all dead.