Govt Agencies Connive with Culprits to Steal Nigeria’s Oil

The troubling and perceived pertinacious inaction by the government to curb the problem of oil theft in the country has been linked to some government agencies’ connivance with crude oil thieves.

Nigeria’s crude oil is being stolen on an industrial scale and it is estimated that the country lost at least 100,000 barrels of oil per day (b/d), about five per cent of Nigeria’s total output in the first quarter of 2013, to theft from its onshore and swamp operations alone.

Experts, who are master mariners with long-standing experience in ship navigation and crude oil cargo operation, said it was baffling to hear of oil theft without any link to relevant agencies of government, as such agencies were always at every crude oil loading terminal.

They queried the possibility of the ability of certain criminal-minded persons to load crude oil unto a vessel at any other place other than the terminals.

The revered maritime experts posit that government must begin to look closely at its agencies at the various crude loading terminals, as their connivance could not be ruled out from incidents of oil theft, saying that crude oil could not be stolen elsewhere except the terminals.

Capt Francis Kponu, who headed Shell’s crude loading at the company’s Bonny Terminal for nearly two decades said, “Sincerely, it baffles me to hear about theft of crude oil, because I wonder how possible it could be for some people to steal the product at a terminal where you have a number of government agencies, who must have input by one document or the other, in the product being loaded and give certifications on the product.

“Again, one wonders if it has become possible now for people to load crude oil unto a vessel elsewhere other than the terminals. It is really baffling that we hear these days of smaller vessels being used to steal crude.